Global Onshore Wind Energy Potential and Its Uncertainties

Wind power, a clean and renewable energy resource, can play an important role in providing energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet there are substantial and important uncertainties about the potential costs and supplies of wind that influence our ability to understand today the strategic role of wind power in the future. A detailed global assessment of onshore wind energy potential and its uncertainties will help decision-makers develop policies and strategies to meet energy and environmental goals. In this study, we assess the technical and economic potential of onshore wind energy and its spatial distribution using reanalysis wind speed data from the National Centers for Environmental Modeling (Figure 1). The study focuses in particular in exploring a range of uncertainties that impact the economic potential of wind power by constructing quantitative scenarios for eight key physical and economic parameters. We present quantification of the impact of uncertainties in these parameters, focusing on areas relevant to geoscience research (Figure 2). The amount of economic potential of wind energy depends strongly on several uncertain parameters such as wind speed, turbine cost, and land-suitability. The distribution of wind speed at fine temporal and spatial scales is a key parameter, but is not well quantified in many regions of the world. Reanalysis datasets with more accurate wind fields are a first step, along with computationally tractable downscaling methodologies. Another key assumption is land-suitability, which is the fraction of a particular land-cover type assumed to be available for wind farm development. There is currently little scientific basis for land-suitability assumptions. While some of the data needed for progress in these areas is readily available, such as high-resolution land-cover and terrain data, further advances are likely to require new methodologies and inter-disciplinary collaboration. We outline a number of areas where further research is needed to construct improved estimates of global wind energy potential.