Look For The Future Of Wind Energy

Scientists take first step to improve estimates of long term changes in wind speed for the wind energy sector growing

Scientists take first step to improve estimates of long term changes in wind speed for wind energy growing. The research aims to identify risks for generators in a changing climate.

Some recent international studies have shown decrease in wind speed in different parts of the world, including Australia. However, recent findings indicate CSIRO, Australia's average wind speed is increasing.

Researchers in CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research have analyzed observations of wind speed in order to understand the causes of fluctuations in the wind near the surface and explore a long-term trends of wind speed in Australia.

"We have a good picture of the availability of wind energy across Australia from the former CSIRO wind mapping, and with the growth of wind farms, there is an emerging need to understand how climate change may affect the resources wind, "said Dr. Alberto Troccoli, lead author of a paper published in the Journal of Climate.

"Wind energy expected to grow significantly in coming years and the associated electrical system shall be subject to variations of several hundred megawatts - depending on the availability of the wind.

"The ability to accurately quantify the long-term variations are crucial for the sector in economic terms," ​​he said.

The combination of energy and meteorology is the subject of an international conference on the Gold Coast in November - http://www.icem2011.org/index.html

Dr. Troccoli said that, on average, than the wind speed in Australia, measured at a height of 10 meters has increased by 0.69% per annum compared to the decrease of 0.36% per year of wind speed measured at a height of 2 meters, as well as in the 1989-2006 period.

Accurate long-term trends in the wind a useful indicator of changes in atmospheric circulation, and are invaluable for the design and financing sectors, such as wind power.

"The potential to increase operational efficiency of energy over time and the quality of climate information is obvious, and one of the first step is the standardization of wind recording stations.

"Observations of wind and other meteorological variables that are sensitive to conditions in which they are observed -. For example, when the instrumentation is related to topographic features, vegetation and urban development "

The team found that the trends of wind speed in Australia are sensitive to the position of high, where twenty products were measured 10 meters in front of the positive developments reported by previous research, which examines only the wind measured at 2m.

Light winds measuring 10 m in height, representing the freer flow of the atmosphere, usually increase faster than average, while strong winds will grow more slowly than the average of the winds. Light winds and strong 2m height are measured tend to vary depending on the medium air.

"Our work shows a series of challenges to the coherence observations during their lifetime and one of the sites around Australia.

"The quality of wind data sets to come will depend on the observation that consistency between sites, especially in relation to the method of measurement, instrumentation and maintenance of detailed records of the history of the place," Dr. Troccoli, said.

He said the work has implications for a variety of sectors beyond wind energy, including building construction, coastal erosion, and evaporation rates.