Wind Resource Assessment in Europe Using Emergy

TL;DR

This study applies emergy analysis to evaluate the sustainability of wind energy across Europe, considering turbine design and local wind resources to identify optimal locations for wind power implementation.

Contribution

It demonstrates the use of emergy indices to assess wind energy sustainability in Europe and maps suitable locations based on turbine parameters and regional wind data.

Findings

Emergy indices are sensitive to turbine design parameters.

Certain European regions are more sustainable for wind energy based on emergy analysis.

Turbine size and cut-in/out speeds significantly influence sustainability assessments.

Abstract

In context of increasing use of renewable sources, it is of importance to correctly evaluate the actual sustainability of their implementation. Emergy analysis is one of the possible methods useful for such an assessment. This work aims to demonstrate how the emergy approach can be used to assess the sustainability of wind energy resource in Europe. The Emergy Index of Sustainability (EIS) and the Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR) are used to analyze 90 stations of European regions for three types of wind turbines. To do so, the simplified Chou wind turbine model is used for different set of parameters as: nominal power and size of the wind turbines, and cut-in and cut-out wind speeds. Based on the calculation of the emergy indices, a mapping is proposed to identify the most appropriate locations for an implementation of wind turbines in European regions. The influence of the wind turbine type on the sustainability is also analyzed, in link with the local wind resource. Thus, it is concluded that the emergy sustainability indices are sensitive to the wind turbine design parameters (size, cut-in and cut-out wind speed).