Open AccessEstimating Wind Energy Potential Offshore in Mediterranean Areas
Author(s) -
Lavagnini Alfredo,
Sempreviva Anna M.,
Barthelmie Rebecca J.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
wind energy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1099-1824
pISSN - 1095-4244
DOI - 10.1002/we.81
Subject(s) - orography , offshore wind power , mediterranean sea , submarine pipeline , meteorology , sea breeze , mediterranean climate , climatology , wind power , wind speed , structural basin , environmental science , oceanography , geography , geology , engineering , precipitation , paleontology , archaeology , electrical engineering
Relatively few studies have been performed on the evaluation of offshore wind resources, and these have been conducted mostly in Northern Europe. In Mediterranean areas the lack of such studies is mainly linked to (1) the difficulty of meteorological monitoring in deeper waters, (2) the complex orography, frequently extending down to the coasts, (3) the sea breeze wind regimes and (4) local winds such as the Bora, Mistral and Sciroc. In the North Adriatic Sea, a shallow basin of the Mediterranean, the first reason is not applicable, but the others are sufficient to make the evaluation of wind speed methods challenging. In this article we estimate the wind climatology at a platform located 15 km offshore of Venice based on 7 years of data and compare it with the wind climatology obtained by five different methods using the long‐term data from four coastal meteorological stations, Venezia Tessera, Venezia San Nicolò, Ronchi and Rimini. We discuss the applicability of these methods and find that the WAsP ® model of Risø National Laboratory is still the best tool for wind climate estimates. The results of two new methods are promising, but the methods still require some development. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.