T. Simões

A methodology for the identification of the sustainable wind potential. The Portuguese case study.

The exponential grow of the wind sector in Portugal required the development of planning tools for the siting of the wind farms, its connection to the existing grid, as well as the assessment of the countrys existing wind resource capable of enabling an economic, social and environmental sustainable development. The methodology developed and presented in this paper was initiated a decade ago with the classification of the existing wind data adequate to wind energy resource assessment as well as the identification of the constraints to the deployment of wind power plants. This GIS based methodology was systematically applied to the Portuguese territory and resulted on the identification of the available optimum sites for wind plant development at the lowest grid connection costs. The methodology may be easily applied to other countries or regions, thus enabling a systematic and objective approach to the wind power deployment.

Tools for Ocean Energy Maritime Spatial Planning

Offshore wind power has been in recent years a highly debated topic and subject to investigation by the several players in the renewable energy sector. The advantages of this form of renewable energy are well known being some of the most important aspects the large wind resource and available area for wind farms’ installation. Nevertheless, the planning of an offshore wind energy project needs to be addressed carefully so as not to interfere with other economic activities or sensitive environmentally protected areas, among other constraints. Similarly, although the offshore wind resource is naturally higher than the resource onshore, the investment costs (including operation and maintenance) are also considerably higher, hence the need to establish straightforward and transparent methodologies for offshore wind planning. Most of the methodologies used for planning purposes are based on geographic information systems (GIS) due to its powerful capabilities in managing, formatting and modelling large amounts of georeferenced data usually involved in planning procedures. This chapter presents a methodology for offshore wind energy planning taking into consideration the several aspects of sea use and the main restrictions which can be relevant for wind farm installation. The methodology consists on the use of a GIS to manage the required information (resource and restrictions maps) and to develop a set of tools that enable the user to add, modify and model the information according to his objectives.

Validation of an offshore wind atlas using the satellite data available at the coastal regions of portugal

In this study a validation methodology for regional mesoscale model simulations when ingested with surface wind data inferred from satellite sources around Continental Portugal is evaluated. Observational wind data from a “quasi” offshore anemometric mast located in the Berlenga Island – near Peniche region – was used for the validation study. Satellite sources of wind data under assessment are the ones being used in the EC funded FP7 NORSEWInD project, such as the QuikSCAT and SAR. The validation study evolves 10 years of full wind data, starting in January 2000 to December 2009. The evaluation was performed in two different spatial validation approaches. Results from this study indicate that the wind satellite data has good quality to be assimilated on high resolution mesoscale model simulations particularly the ones concerned with long term behavior of the wind field near the coastal areas.