Wind energy at remote islands in arctic region—A case study of Solovetsky islands

Abstract

This paper describes a case study of wind resource assessment and wind park design at the Solovetsky Islands, which are located in the Arctic region of northern Russia. The Solovetsky historical and cultural complex has been included in the list of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. 18 years of data of wind climatology from the NASA Langley Research Center are used for wind resource assessment at the Solovetsky Islands for two different wind park locations. Computational fluid dynamics based numerical simulations are carried out for wind resource assessment and for the estimation of the resultant annual energy production (AEP) for both locations. To better understand wind flow physics and the effects of wind turbine wake effects, three different wake models are used for the numerical simulations. Analyses of seasonal weather effects on energy production show that wind power production at the Solovetsky Islands is higher during the winter period compared to the summer period, mainly due to higher wind speeds and air density at cold winter conditions. A preliminary case study about wind park layout optimization has also been carried out, where the results show an increase in AEP with the optimization of the wind park layout.