An Onshore Wind Resource Assessment for Iceland Using HARMONIE Reanalysis Data with Consideration to Hydrological Reservoir Flows
Author: Danielle Preziuso
Year: 2016
Supervisors: Stefán Kári Sveinbjörnsson & Ármann Gylfason
Abstract
Wind resource assessments are critical for successful wind farm implementation; they identify locations where resources are suitable for development. There are many approaches to conducting wind resource assessments, and the use of climatic data generated by numerical weather prediction models is becoming increasingly common in initial assessments. A reanalysis project conducted by the Icelandic Meteorological Office using the HARMONIE (Hirlam-Aladin Research towards Meso-scale Operational NWP in Europe) model produced 36 years' worth of hourly weather data for Iceland, which was used for a nation-wide wind resource assessment in this study.
The assessment identified 27 favorable regions for wind development, and a cross-correlation test determined that the sites are largely correlated across the country during the evaluated timeframes. Noting hydropower's dominance in Iceland's current energy portfolio, the favorable wind sites were also cross-correlated with historical hydrological reservoir flows, which displayed a real possibility of wind energy and hydropower complementing one another in the country. If thoughtfully developed, the wind sector could help increase the overall efficiency of the country's energy portfolio while also creating diversity in production sources.