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Offshore wind: An opportunity for cost-competitive decarbonization of China's energy economy.

ABSTRACT: China has reduced growth in its emissions of greenhouse gases, partly attributable to major investments in onshore wind. By comparison, investments in offshore wind have been minor, limited until recently largely by perceptions of cost. Assimilated meteorological data are used here to assess future offshore wind potential for China. Analysis on a provincial basis indicates that the aggregate potential wind resource is 5.4 times larger than the current coastal demand for power. Recent experiences with markets in both Europe and the United States suggest that potential offshore resources in China could be exploited to cost-competitively provide 1148.3 TWh of energy in a high-cost scenario, 6383.4 TWh in a low-cost option, equivalent to between 36 and 200% of the total coastal energy demand after 2020. The analysis underscores notable benefits for offshore wind for China, with prospects for major reductions in greenhouse emissions with ancillary benefits for air quality.

SUBMITTER: Sherman P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7034984 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Offshore wind: An opportunity for cost-competitive decarbonization of China's energy economy.

Sherman Peter P Chen Xinyu X McElroy Michael M

Science advances 20200221 8

China has reduced growth in its emissions of greenhouse gases, partly attributable to major investments in onshore wind. By comparison, investments in offshore wind have been minor, limited until recently largely by perceptions of cost. Assimilated meteorological data are used here to assess future offshore wind potential for China. Analysis on a provincial basis indicates that the aggregate potential wind resource is 5.4 times larger than the current coastal demand for power. Recent experiences ...[more]

PMID: 32128398

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Project description:In previous work, the authors demonstrated how data from climate simulations can be utilized to estimate regional wind power densities. In particular, it was shown that the quality of wind power densities, estimated from the UPSCALE global dataset in offshore regions of Mexico, compared well with regional high resolution studies. Additionally, a link between surface temperature and moist air density in the estimates was presented. UPSCALE is an acronym for UK on PRACE (the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe)-weather-resolving Simulations of Climate for globAL Environmental risk. The UPSCALE experiment was performed in 2012 by NCAS (National Centre for Atmospheric Science)-Climate, at the University of Reading and the UK Met Office Hadley Centre. The study included a 25.6-year, five-member ensemble simulation of the HadGEM3 global atmosphere, at 25km resolution for present climate conditions. The initial conditions for the ensemble runs were taken from consecutive days of a test configuration. In the present paper, the emphasis is placed on the single climate run for a potential future climate scenario in the UPSCALE experiment dataset, using the Representation Concentrations Pathways (RCP) 8.5 climate change scenario. Firstly, some tests were performed to ensure that the results using only one instantiation of the current climate dataset are as robust as possible within the constraints of the available data. In order to achieve this, an artificial time series over a longer sampling period was created. Then, it was shown that these longer time series provided almost the same results than the short ones, thus leading to the argument that the short time series is sufficient to capture the climate. Finally, with the confidence that one instantiation is sufficient, the future climate dataset was analysed to provide, for the first time, a projection of future changes in wind power resources using the UPSCALE dataset. It is hoped that this, in turn, will provide some guidance for wind power developers and policy makers to prepare and adapt for climate change impacts on wind energy production. Although offshore locations around Mexico were used as a case study, the dataset is global and hence the methodology presented can be readily applied at any desired location.

Dataset Information

Offshore wind: An opportunity for cost-competitive decarbonization of China's energy economy.

Publications

Offshore wind: An opportunity for cost-competitive decarbonization of China's energy economy.

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