scholarly journals Wind potential assessment over Morocco`s Marrakesh - Safi Region in 2021-2050 based on the RCM`s forecasts as part of the CORDEX-Africa project

Author(s):  
Y. El. Hadri ◽  
M. Slizhe ◽  
K. Sernytska

The purpose of the study is to determine the features of the spatial distribution of the wind speed in Marrakesh - Safi region in 2021-2050, as well as the distribution of the specific power of the wind flow at various altitudes above the earth’s surface to determine the wind class of the area in the coming decades. Currently, the region has two large wind farms: Essaouira-Amogdoul and Tarfayer. To assess the future state of climate in Marrakesh − Safi region, the results of calculations of regional climate models (RCM) of the CORDEX-Africa project for the period 2021-2050 were used. The RCM modeling was carried out for the region of Africa, in a rectangular coordinate system with a spatial resolution of ~ 44 km. Model calculation was performed taking into account the greenhouse gas concentration trajectory of RCP 4.5. As a result of simulation for the period 2021-2050, mean monthly values of wind speed "sfcWind" (m·s-1) and the daily maximum near-surface wind speed "sfcwindmax" (m·s-1) at 10 m height were obtained. Then, based on the wind speed rows, the values of the wind power density at a height of 50 m and 100 m were calculated. The results of model calculations of wind speed showed that the ensemble mean of wind speed for the period 2021-2050 will be from 3.8 m∙s-1 in Kelaat Sraghna Province to 7.2 m∙s-1 on the stretch of the Atlantic coast between Cap Sim and Cap Tafelny.The distribution over the territory will be influenced by proximity to the ocean, models predict the highest wind speeds on the coast, and when moving deep into the region, the wind speed will decrease.The analysis of simulation results showed that in the coastal areas of the region favorable conditions in terms of wind energy development will remain, and the highest wind speeds of the model are predicted on the Atlantic coast between Cap Sim and Cap Tafelny. By the size of the specific power of the wind flow, significant wind resources will have the territory lying along the coast from Cap Sim to the southern border of the region, and in the area of the power plants Essaouira-Amogdoul and Tarfayer models predict the conditions corresponding to the outstanding wind power class.

2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (10) ◽  
pp. 2229-2245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey T. Daines ◽  
Adam H. Monahan ◽  
Charles L. Curry

AbstractNear-surface wind is important in forestry, agriculture, air pollution, building energy use, and wind power generation. In western Canada it presently plays a minor role in power generation, but ongoing reductions in the cost of wind power infrastructure and the increasing costs of conventional power generation (including environmental costs) motivate the assessment of the projected future wind climate and uncertainties in this projection. Multiple realizations of the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM) at 45-km resolution were driven by two global climate models over the periods 1971–2000 (using historical greenhouse gas concentrations) and 2031–60 (using the SRES-A2 concentration scenario). Hourly wind speeds from 30 stations were analyzed over 1971–2000 and used to calibrate downscaled ensembles of projected wind speed distributions over 2031–60. At most station locations modest increases in mean wind speed were found for a majority of the projections, but with an ensemble spread of the same order of magnitude as the increases. Relative changes in mean wind speeds at station locations were found to be insensitive to the station observations and calibration technique. In view of this result, projected relative changes in future wind climate over the entire CRCM domain were estimated using uncalibrated pairs of past-period and future-period wind speed distributions. The relative changes are robust, in the sense that their ensemble mean relative change is greater than their standard deviation, but are not very substantial, in the sense that their ensemble mean change is generally less than the standard deviation of their annual means.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 738 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenqing Xu ◽  
Like Ning ◽  
Yong Luo

With the large-scale development of wind energy, wind power forecasting plays a key role in power dispatching in the electric power grid, as well as in the operation and maintenance of wind farms. The most important technology for wind power forecasting is forecasting wind speed. The current mainstream methods for wind speed forecasting involve the combination of mesoscale numerical meteorological models with a post-processing system. Our work uses the WRF model to obtain the numerical weather forecast and the gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT) algorithm to improve the near-surface wind speed post-processing results of the numerical weather model. We calculate the feature importance of GBDT in order to find out which feature most affects the post-processing wind speed results. The results show that, after using about 300 features at different height and pressure layers, the GBDT algorithm can output more accurate wind speed forecasts than the original WRF results and other post-processing models like decision tree regression (DTR) and multi-layer perceptron regression (MLPR). Using GBDT, the root mean square error (RMSE) of wind speed can be reduced from 2.7–3.5 m/s in the original WRF result by 1–1.5 m/s, which is better than DTR and MLPR. While the index of agreement (IA) can be improved by 0.10–0.20, correlation coefficient be improved by 0.10–0.18, Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (NSE) be improved by −0.06–0.6. It also can be found that the feature which most affects the GBDT results is the near-surface wind speed. Other variables, such as forecast month, forecast time, and temperature, also affect the GBDT results.


Author(s):  
Shakeel Asharaf ◽  
Duane E. Waliser ◽  
Derek J. Posselt ◽  
Christopher S. Ruf ◽  
Chidong Zhang ◽  
...  

AbstractSurface wind plays a crucial role in many local/regional weather and climate processes, especially through the exchanges of energy, mass and momentum across the Earth’s surface. However, there is a lack of consistent observations with continuous coverage over the global tropical ocean. To fill this gap, the NASA Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) mission was launched in December 2016, consisting of a constellation of eight small spacecrafts that remotely sense near surface wind speed over the tropical and sub-tropical oceans with relatively high sampling rates both temporally and spatially. This current study uses data obtained from the Tropical Moored Buoy Arrays to quantitatively characterize and validate the CYGNSS derived winds over the tropical Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans. The validation results show that the uncertainty in CYGNSS wind speed, as compared with these tropical buoy data, is less than 2 m s-1 root mean squared difference, meeting the NASA science mission Level-1 uncertainty requirement for wind speeds below 20 m s-1. The quality of the CYGNSS wind is further assessed under different precipitation conditions, and in convective cold-pool events, identified using buoy rain and temperature data. Results show that CYGNSS winds compare fairly well with buoy observations in the presence of rain, though at low wind speeds the presence of rain appears to cause a slight positive wind speed bias in the CYGNSS data. The comparison indicates the potential utility of the CYGNSS surface wind product, which in turn may help to unravel the complexities of air-sea interaction in regions that are relatively under-sampled by other observing platforms.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (7) ◽  
pp. 3785-3801 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. W. Butler ◽  
N. S. Wagenbrenner ◽  
J. M. Forthofer ◽  
B. K. Lamb ◽  
K. S. Shannon ◽  
...  

Abstract. A number of numerical wind flow models have been developed for simulating wind flow at relatively fine spatial resolutions (e.g., ~ 100 m); however, there are very limited observational data available for evaluating these high-resolution models. This study presents high-resolution surface wind data sets collected from an isolated mountain and a steep river canyon. The wind data are presented in terms of four flow regimes: upslope, afternoon, downslope, and a synoptically driven regime. There were notable differences in the data collected from the two terrain types. For example, wind speeds on the isolated mountain increased with distance upslope during upslope flow, but generally decreased with distance upslope at the river canyon site during upslope flow. In a downslope flow, wind speed did not have a consistent trend with position on the isolated mountain, but generally increased with distance upslope at the river canyon site. The highest measured speeds occurred during the passage of frontal systems on the isolated mountain. Mountaintop winds were often twice as high as wind speeds measured on the surrounding plain. The highest speeds measured in the river canyon occurred during late morning hours and were from easterly down-canyon flows, presumably associated with surface pressure gradients induced by formation of a regional thermal trough to the west and high pressure to the east. Under periods of weak synoptic forcing, surface winds tended to be decoupled from large-scale flows, and under periods of strong synoptic forcing, variability in surface winds was sufficiently large due to terrain-induced mechanical effects (speed-up over ridges and decreased speeds on leeward sides of terrain obstacles) that a large-scale mean flow would not be representative of surface winds at most locations on or within the terrain feature. These findings suggest that traditional operational weather model (i.e., with numerical grid resolutions of around 4 km or larger) wind predictions are not likely to be good predictors of local near-surface winds on sub-grid scales in complex terrain. Measurement data can be found at http://www.firemodels.org/index.php/windninja-introduction/windninja-publications.


2015 ◽  
Vol 785 ◽  
pp. 621-626
Author(s):  
R. Shamsipour ◽  
M. Fadaeenejad ◽  
M.A.M. Radzi

In this study, wind energy potential in three different stations in Malaysia in period of 5 years is analyzed. Base on Weibull distribution parameters, the mean wind speed, wind power density and wind energy density is estimated for each defined location. Although there are many works about wind potential in Malaysia, however a few of them have been provided a comprehensive study about wind power in different places in Malaysia. According to the findings, the annual mean wind speeds indicates that the highest wind speed variation is about 2 m/s and is belonged to the Subang station and the highest wind speed is 3.5 m/s in in Kudat. It is also found that the maximum wind power densities among these three sites are 22 W/m2, 24 W/m2 and 22 W/m2 in Kudat station in January, February and September respectively. The results of the study show that as the second parameter for Weibull model, the highest wind energy density has been 190 kWh/m2 per year in Kudat and the lowest one has been about 60 kWh/m2 in Kuching.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (18) ◽  
pp. 6441-6458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanping He ◽  
Norman A. McFarlane ◽  
Adam H. Monahan

Abstract Knowledge of the diurnally varying land surface wind speed probability distribution is essential for surface flux estimation and wind power management. Global observations indicate that the surface wind speed probability density function (PDF) is characterized by a Weibull-like PDF during the day and a nighttime PDF with considerably greater skewness. Consideration of long-term tower observations at Cabauw, the Netherlands, indicates that this nighttime skewness is a shallow feature connected to the formation of a stably stratified nocturnal boundary layer. The observed diurnally varying vertical structure of the leading three climatological moments of near-surface wind speed (mean, standard deviation, and skewness) and the wind power density at the Cabauw site can be successfully simulated using the single-column version of the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (CCCma) fourth-generation atmospheric general circulation model (CanAM4) with a new semiempirical diagnostic turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) scheme representing downgradient turbulent transfer processes for cloud-free conditions. This model also includes a simple stochastic representation of intermittent turbulence at the boundary layer inversion. It is found that the mean and the standard deviation of wind speed are most influenced by large-scale “weather” variability, while the shape of the PDF is influenced by the intermittent mixing process. This effect is quantitatively dependent on the asymptotic flux Richardson number, which determines the Prandtl number in stable flows. High vertical resolution near the land surface is also necessary for realistic simulation of the observed fine vertical structure of wind speed distribution.


2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 1209-1225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Wan ◽  
Xiaolan L. Wang ◽  
Val R. Swail

Abstract Near-surface wind speeds recorded at 117 stations in Canada for the period from 1953 to 2006 were analyzed in this study. First, metadata and a logarithmic wind profile were used to adjust hourly wind speeds measured at nonstandard anemometer heights to the standard 10-m level. Monthly mean near-surface wind speed series were then derived and subjected to a statistical homogeneity test, with homogeneous monthly mean geostrophic wind (geowind) speed series being used as reference series. Homogenized monthly mean near-surface wind speed series were obtained by adjusting all significant mean shifts, using the results of the statistical test and modeling along with all available metadata, and were used to assess the long-term trends. This study shows that station relocation and anemometer height change are the main causes for discontinuities in the near-surface wind speed series, followed by instrumentation problems or changes, and observing environment changes. It also shows that the effects of artificial mean shifts on the results of trend analysis are remarkable, and that the homogenized near-surface wind speed series show good spatial consistency of trends, which are in agreement with long-term trends estimated from independent datasets, such as surface winds in the United States and cyclone activity indices and ocean wave heights in the region. These indicate success in the homogenization of the wind data. During the period analyzed, the homogenized near-surface wind speed series show significant decreases throughout western Canada and most parts of southern Canada (except the Maritimes) in all seasons, with significant increases in the central Canadian Arctic in all seasons and in the Maritimes in spring and autumn.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaume Ramon ◽  
Llorenç Lledó ◽  
Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière ◽  
Margarida Samsó ◽  
Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes

<p>Thanks to the recent advances in climate modelling, seasonal predictions are becoming more skilful at anticipating the future state of near-surface climate variables over extratropics. Nevertheless, such predictions are delivered on too coarse grids with horizontal resolutions of hundreds of kilometres so that local events happening at much finer scales cannot be reproduced. This is particularly noted for variables with high spatial variability like wind or precipitation: wind speeds can vary substantially over a few kilometres, from the top of a mountain to a valley floor. The differences in magnitude might be relevant for the deriving sectoral indicators, for example, within the wind industry and at a wind farm level.</p><p>This work presents and applies a downscaling methodology to generate fine-scale seasonal forecasts ---up to station scale--- for near-surface wind speeds in Europe. The hybrid forecasts are based on a statistical downscaling with a perfect prognosis approach, fitting a multi-linear regression with the four main Euro-Atlantic Teleconnections (EATC) indices as predictors. Seasonal predictions of EATC indices, which are predictable with relatively good skill levels, are later inserted into the multi-linear model. This results in skilful seasonal predictions of surface wind speeds. Indeed, the comparison of the hybrid forecasts against the dynamical forecasts of wind speed shows that the skill of such forecasts is not only maintained but also increased over most of Europe. The hybrid forecasts are generated at 17 locations where tall tower wind speed data are available and at a pan-European scale using the 100-metre wind speeds from the ERA5 reanalysis. Improving the accuracy of seasonal predictions is an essential step to inform weather-and-climate-vulnerable socio-economic sectors of seasonal anomalies a few months ahead.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-52
Author(s):  
Cheng Shen ◽  
Jinlin Zha ◽  
Jian Wu ◽  
Deming Zhao

AbstractInvestigations of variations and causes of near-surface wind speed (NWS) further understanding of the atmospheric changes and improve the ability of climate analysis and projections. NWS varies on multiple temporal scales; however, the centennial-scale variability in NWS and associated causes over China remains unknown. In this study, we employ the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) twentieth century reanalysis (ERA-20C) to study the centennial-scale changes in NWS from 1900–2010. Meanwhile, a forward stepwise regression algorithm is used to reveal the relationships between NWS and large-scale ocean-atmosphere circulations. The results show three unique periods in annual mean NWS over China from 1900–2010. The annual mean NWS displayed a decreasing trend of -0.87% decade-1 and -11.75% decade-1 from 1900–1925 and 1957–2010, respectively, which were caused by the decreases in the days with strong winds, with trends of -6.64 and -4.66 days decade-1, respectively. The annual mean NWS showed an upward trend of 55.47% decade-1 from 1926–1956, which was caused by increases in the days with moderate (0.43 days decade-1) and strong winds (23.55 days decade-1). The reconstructed wind speeds based on forward stepwise regression algorithm matched well with the original wind speeds; therefore, the decadal changes in NWS over China at centennial-scale were mainly induced by large-scale ocean-atmosphere circulations, with the total explanation power of 66%. The strongest explanation power was found in winter (74%), and the weakest explanation power was found in summer (46%).


Author(s):  
V. Khokhlov ◽  
Y. El Hadri

The Moroccan energy system is highly dependent on external energy markets. Therefore, the current renewable energy strategy is focused on deployment of large-scale renewable technologies projects. Morocco has abundant wind resources. Estimations made by development organizations in Morocco quantify that the economic and technical potential of wind energy in Morocco amount to 26 GW. The aim of this study is to determine the possible quantitative indicators of wind speed, the daily maximum wind speed and their space-time distribution in the period 2020-2050 on the territory of Morocco. In study used data from regional climate modelling with a high spatial resolution of the project CORDEX. Simulations of regional climate models provide opportunities for a better understanding of atmospheric processes in the region and their possible future change. In the study use of regional climate models simulations for the RCP 4.5 scenario for the Africa region, presented in a rectangular coordinate system with a spatial resolution of ≈ 44 km. As a result of the regional climate models calculation, the mean monthly Near-Surface Wind Speed, and Daily Maximum Near-Surface Wind Speed values for the period 2020-2050 for the territory of Morocco were obtained. Regional climate models simulations showed that in Morocco will be dominated by gentle and moderate winds. The smallest values of the average wind speed are predicted in Fez − Meknes and Beni-Mellal − Henifra regions and will be about 3 m/s, the highest values can reach 9 m/s on the Atlantic coast to the south of Dakhla village. An analysis showed that in the future a character of annual course, in general, will have two types: in central mountain regions of Atlas, in the northeastern part of country and on the Mediterranean coast maximum wind speed will be register in winter; summer seasonal maximum of wind speed will be typical on the flat areas of the Atlantic coast, in the southern part of the country and on areas located behind the ridges of the Atlas mountains on the border with Algeria. The most favorable for the development of wind energy will be areas located on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean and in the southern part of Morocco.


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