Abstract
This article presents a review of the status and basis of wind-generated electricity production, the state of knowledge regarding possible changes in the spatio-temporal characteristics of the wind resource and wind turbine operating conditions, the principal extreme events that are of relevance to the wind energy industry, and the major potential vulnerabilities of the wind energy industry to climate change, with a specific focus on extreme events. Generally, the magnitude of projected changes over Europe and the contiguous USA are within the ‘conservative’ estimates embedded within the Wind Turbine Design Standards. However, more research is needed to quantify (i) how global climate evolution may influence the operation of wind turbines outside these regions, (ii) events causing coincident extreme wind speeds, gusts, and vertical wind shear, and (iii) combined wind-wave loading on offshore turbines.
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Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the comments of two reviewers, financial support from the National Science Foundation (# 1019603 and 1067007) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) for providing RCM output used in this paper. Station data for the fastest mile wind speeds were obtained from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) website; www.itl.nist.gov/div898/winds/daily.htm.
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This article is part of the Special Issue on “Climate Change, Extremes, and Energy Systems.”
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Pryor, S.C., Barthelmie, R.J. Assessing the vulnerability of wind energy to climate change and extreme events. Climatic Change 121, 79–91 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-0889-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-0889-y