Multi-scale and model-chain evaluation of wind atlases
Info
Start date: 1 April, 2018 End date: 31 December, 2021 Project type: Research projects in countries with targeted development cooperation (earlier Window 2) Project code: 17-M01-DTU Countries: Mexico Thematic areas: Climate change, Energy, Lead institution: Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Denmark Partner institutions: Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education of Ensenada (CICESE), Mexico National Institute of Electricity and Clean Energies (INEEL), Gerencia de Energias Renovables, Mexico Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico Project website: go to website (the site might be inactive) Project coordinator: Alfredo Peña Total grant: 4,980,817 DKK Project files:
17-M01-DTU-Popular_science_descriptionProject summary
To establish a secure basis for clean and effective supply of energy from the available wind resources of a country/region, MEWA aims at investigating methodologies for the coupling of micro- and meso-scale models, which are used to estimate wind resources accurately. Such multi-scale model coupling is necessary because the meso-scale model cannot resolve local features of the topography, while the micro-scale model cannot predict the large-scale wind climatology. The current available methodologies are challenged in particular when applied on complex topographies and climatographies. The challenge is because the microscale models, which can resolve the flow at a high spatial resolution over a large region, are mostly based on linearized flow models, whose assumptions are limited to gentle topographies. Furthermore, many of the coupling methodologies assume flow characteristics that are not applicable to complex flows.
MEWA also aims at investigating, for the first time, the impact of climate fluctuations and change, and variations in surface characteristics and land-cover on wind resources using multi-scale modeling. Mexico is a country with a multi-variability of topographies and experiences rapid and extreme changes in land-cover and surface characteristics, therefore representing an ideal scenario for such investigations. Mexico has also set ambitious targets for energy generation using clean energy sources (50% of the electricity should come from renewable sources by 2050) and is currently after Brazil the Latin American country with the highest wind-power penetration, expecting nearly 13 GW installed by 2020.
MEWA scientifically aims at:
1. Evaluating meso-micro-scale coupling techniques for wind predictions.
2. Investigating the impact of climate variability and changes in land cover on wind.
These are reached by deliver these main outputs:
1. Datasets of atmospheric simulations and observations, and models for wind resources assessment.
2. The study of Global Climate Models for wind predictions, an uncertainty evaluation of those, and methodologies to assess the impacts of climate change on winds.
3. Reviewing meso-micro-scale modelling techniques and evaluating the goodness of some of these by comparing the accuracy of the stastitical- vs dynamical-based techniques against
measurements.
Outcomes of MEWA are:
1. Identifying the existing datasets of wind.
2. The study of climate change and wind resources over Mexico.
3. The evaluation and improvement of coupling techniques.
4. The dissemination of MEWA’s results.
