New Geo-Net Service: Energy Yield Assessments Considering Climate Change
Hanover, Germany - In the context of wind energy development, the question of how climate change might affect the energy yield of wind farms over the course of their operating life has gained attention.
Geo-Net Umweltconsulting GmbH from Hanover (Geo-Net), which specializes in wind meteorological studies, energy yield analyses and environmental meteorological issues, is addressing this issue in a new service. Upon customer request, the company can now perform site-specific wind energy yield analyses taking into account various climate scenarios. The new service is based on a coupling of climate models with the CFD model FITNAH-3D, which has already been tested for a long time and is continuously being further developed. Regional climate projections from the so-called Cordex initiative are used for this purpose.
The possible effects of climatic changes on the yields of wind farms and site assessment are also the subject of the currently running research project KliWiSt. In this project, the project partners Fraunhofer IWES and the Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS) are analyzing the historical and the near future (focus: +/- 50 years) projected climatic changes of the wind and their influence on wind farm yields and integrate them into the context of site assessment. The main focus is on wind potential. In addition, other yield-relevant aspects, such as the climate change-related influence on flight conditions of bats or the risk of icing, will be compiled and investigated. Recommendations for action for the industry are to be derived from these results. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) is funding the project until 2024 with a total of 1.16 million euros.
Source: IWR Online, 11 May 2023
