A Positive Climatic Trend in the Global Offshore Wind Power

Abstract

The climatic variation of offshore wind energy has a close relationship with the long-term plan of energy utilization. However, the work on this aspect is scarce and mainly focuses on the variation of wind power density (WPD). There is little research on the climatic trends of effective wind speed occurrence (EWSO) and occurrence of energy level greater than 200 W/m2 (rich level occurrence, RLO), which are directly related to the available rate and richness of wind energy. Based on the ERA-Interim wind product from the ECMWF, this study calculated the climatic trends of series of key factors of wind energy in the global oceans, including the WPD, EWSO, and RLO. The results show that the wind energy exhibits a positive trend globally for the past 36 years, with overall annual increasing trends in WPD, EWSO, and RLO, of 0.698 (W/m2)/yr, 0.076%/yr, and 0.090%/yr separately. The annual trend exhibits evident regional differences. The areas with significant increasing trends are mainly distributed in the mid- low-latitude waters of global oceans and part of the southern hemisphere westerlies. The annual increasing trend of WPD is strongest in the southern westerlies, especially in the extratropical South Pacific (ETSP), of about 1.64 (W/m2)/yr. The annual increasing trends of EWSO and RLO are strongest in the tropical waters, especially the tropical Pacific Ocean (TPO), of 0.17%/yr and 0.19%/yr separately. The annual and seasonal WPD, EWSO, and RLO in most global oceans have significant increasing trends or no significant variation, meaning that the wind energy trends are rich or stable, which is beneficial for energy development. The climatic trends of wind energy are dominated by different time periods. There is no evident abrupt change of wind energy in the extratropical waters globally and tropical Atlantic Ocean (TAO). The abrupt periods of wind energy in the TIO and TPO occurred in the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. The wind energy of the South China Sea, Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal and nino3 index share a common period of approximately 5 years. The offshore wind energy was controlled by an oscillating phenomenon.