The Potential Wind Power Resource in Australia: A New Perspective
Australia is considered to have very good wind resources, and the utilization of this renewable energy resource is increasing. Wind power installed capacity increased by 35% from 2006 to 2011 and is predicted to account for over 12% of Australia’s electricity generation in 2030. This study uses a re...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Technical Report |
| Language: | en_US |
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MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/91456 |
| _version_ | 1826204969378775040 |
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| author | Hallgren, Willow Gunturu, Udaya Bhaskar Schlosser, C. Adam |
| author_facet | Hallgren, Willow Gunturu, Udaya Bhaskar Schlosser, C. Adam |
| author_sort | Hallgren, Willow |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Australia is considered to have very good wind resources, and the utilization of this renewable energy resource is increasing. Wind power installed capacity increased by 35% from 2006 to 2011 and is predicted to account for over 12% of Australia’s electricity generation in 2030. This study uses a recently published methodology to address the limitations of previous wind resource analyses, and frames the nature of Australia’s wind resources from the perspective of economic viability, using robust metrics of the abundance, variability and intermittency of wind power density, and analyzes whether these differ with higher wind turbine hub heights. We also assess the extent to which wind intermittency can potentially be mitigated by the aggregation of geographically dispersed wind farms. Our results suggest that over much of Australia, areas that have high wind intermittency coincide with large expanses in which the aggregation of turbine output does not mitigate variability. These areas are also geographically remote, some are disconnected from the east coast’s electricity grid and large population centers, and often are not connected or located near enough to high capacity electricity infrastructure, all of which would decrease the potential economic viability of wind farms in these locations. However, on the eastern seaboard, even though the wind resource is weaker, it is less variable, much closer to large population centers, and there exists more potential to mitigate its intermittency through aggregation. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:04:30Z |
| format | Technical Report |
| id | mit-1721.1/91456 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:04:30Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/914562019-04-12T09:02:26Z The Potential Wind Power Resource in Australia: A New Perspective Hallgren, Willow Gunturu, Udaya Bhaskar Schlosser, C. Adam Australia is considered to have very good wind resources, and the utilization of this renewable energy resource is increasing. Wind power installed capacity increased by 35% from 2006 to 2011 and is predicted to account for over 12% of Australia’s electricity generation in 2030. This study uses a recently published methodology to address the limitations of previous wind resource analyses, and frames the nature of Australia’s wind resources from the perspective of economic viability, using robust metrics of the abundance, variability and intermittency of wind power density, and analyzes whether these differ with higher wind turbine hub heights. We also assess the extent to which wind intermittency can potentially be mitigated by the aggregation of geographically dispersed wind farms. Our results suggest that over much of Australia, areas that have high wind intermittency coincide with large expanses in which the aggregation of turbine output does not mitigate variability. These areas are also geographically remote, some are disconnected from the east coast’s electricity grid and large population centers, and often are not connected or located near enough to high capacity electricity infrastructure, all of which would decrease the potential economic viability of wind farms in these locations. However, on the eastern seaboard, even though the wind resource is weaker, it is less variable, much closer to large population centers, and there exists more potential to mitigate its intermittency through aggregation. The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this work provided by the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change through a number of federal agencies and industrial sponsors including US Department of Energy grant DE-FG02-94ER61937. 2014-11-05T15:35:02Z 2014-11-05T15:35:02Z 2014-02 Technical Report http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/91456 Report 256 en_US MIT Joint Program Report Series;256 application/pdf MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change |
| spellingShingle | Hallgren, Willow Gunturu, Udaya Bhaskar Schlosser, C. Adam The Potential Wind Power Resource in Australia: A New Perspective |
| title | The Potential Wind Power Resource in Australia: A New Perspective |
| title_full | The Potential Wind Power Resource in Australia: A New Perspective |
| title_fullStr | The Potential Wind Power Resource in Australia: A New Perspective |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Potential Wind Power Resource in Australia: A New Perspective |
| title_short | The Potential Wind Power Resource in Australia: A New Perspective |
| title_sort | potential wind power resource in australia a new perspective |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/91456 |
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