Sensitivity Analysis of Wind Energy Resources with Bayesian non-Gaussian and nonstationary Functional ANOVA

TL;DR

This paper introduces a Bayesian non-Gaussian, nonstationary functional ANOVA model to analyze wind energy resource sensitivity, accounting for spatial heterogeneity and model uncertainties, aiding wind farm planning in Saudi Arabia.

Contribution

It develops a novel latent Gaussian functional ANOVA approach that captures local sensitivities and spatial resolution effects on wind energy estimates.

Findings

Non-local planetary boundary layer scheme improves wind speed modeling.

High spatial resolution enhances accuracy in complex terrains.

Impact of modeling choices on wind farm planning is minimal (up to 1.4%).

Abstract

The transition from non-renewable to renewable energies represents a global societal challenge, and developing a sustainable energy portfolio is an especially daunting task for developing countries where little to no information is available regarding the abundance of renewable resources such as wind. Weather model simulations are key to obtain such information when observational data are scarce and sparse over a country as large and geographically diverse as Saudi Arabia. However, output from such models is uncertain, as it depends on inputs such as the parametrization of the physical processes and the spatial resolution of the simulated domain. In such situations, a sensitivity analysis must be performed and the input may have a spatially heterogeneous influence of wind. In this work, we propose a latent Gaussian functional analysis of variance (ANOVA) model that relies on a nonstationary Gaussian Markov random field approximation of a continuous latent process. The proposed approach is able to capture the local sensitivity of Gaussian and non-Gaussian wind characteristics such as speed and threshold exceedances over a large simulation domain, and a continuous underlying process also allows us to assess the effect of different spatial resolutions. Our results indicate that (1) the non-local planetary boundary layer scheme and high spatial resolution are both instrumental in capturing wind speed and energy (especially over complex mountainous terrain), and (2) the impact of planetary boundary layer scheme and resolution on Saudi Arabia's planned wind farms is small (at most 1.4%). Thus, our results lend support for the construction of these wind farms in the next decade.