Reviewing methods and assumptions for high-resolution large-scale onshore wind energy potential assessments

TL;DR

This paper critically reviews methods and assumptions used in assessing high-resolution onshore wind energy potential, covering technical, economic, and social factors, and offers best practice recommendations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of current methodologies and assumptions in onshore wind potential assessments, highlighting areas for improvement and future research directions.

Findings

Addresses land eligibility, meteorology, and turbine characteristics.

Discusses economic factors like levelized costs and system integration.

Highlights non-technical assessment approaches such as stakeholder engagement.

Abstract

The rapid uptake of renewable energy technologies in recent decades has increased the demand of energy researchers, policymakers and energy planners for reliable data on the spatial distribution of their costs and potentials. For onshore wind energy this has resulted in an active research field devoted to analysing these resources for regions, countries or globally. A particular thread of this research attempts to go beyond purely technical or spatial restrictions and determine the realistic, feasible or actual potential for wind energy. Motivated by these developments, this paper reviews methods and assumptions for analysing geographical, technical, economic and, finally, feasible onshore wind potentials. We address each of these potentials in turn, including aspects related to land eligibility criteria, energy meteorology, and technical developments relating to wind turbine characteristics such as power density, specific rotor power and spacing aspects. Economic aspects of potential assessments are central to future deployment and are discussed on a turbine and system level covering levelized costs depending on locations, and the system integration costs which are often overlooked in such analyses. Non-technical approaches include scenicness assessments of the landscape, expert and stakeholder workshops, willingness to pay / accept elicitations and socioeconomic cost-benefit studies. For each of these different potential estimations, the state of the art is critically discussed, with an attempt to derive best practice recommendations and highlight avenues for future research.