Projected changes in wind power potential over China and India in high resolution climate models
Open Access
- 11 February 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by IOP Publishing in Environmental Research Letters
- Vol. 16 (3), 034057
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abe57c
Abstract
As more countries commit to emissions reductions by midcentury to curb anthropogenic climate change, decarbonization of the electricity sector becomes a first-order task in reaching this goal. Renewables, particularly wind and solar power, will be predominant components of this transition. How availability of the wind and solar resource will change in the future in response to regional climate changes is an important and underdiscussed topic of the decarbonization process. Here, we study changes in potential for wind power in China and India, evaluating prospectively until the year 2060. To do this, we study a downscaled, high-resolution multimodel ensemble of CMIP5 models under high and low emissions scenarios. While there is some intermodel variability, we find that spatial changes are generally consistent across models, with decreases of up to 965 (a 1% change) and 186 TWh (a 2% change) in annual electricity generation potential for China and India, respectively. Compensating for the declining resource are weakened seasonal and diurnal variabilities, allowing for easier large-scale wind power integration. We conclude that while the ensemble indicates available wind resource over China and India will decline slightly in the future, there remains enormous potential for significant wind power expansion, which must play a major role in carbon neutral aspirations.Funding Information
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (51907066)
- Harvard Global Institute
- State Key Laboratory on Smart Grid Protection and Operation Control of NARI Group (20171613)
This publication has 19 references indexed in Scilit:
- Wind-generated Electricity in China: Decreasing Potential, Inter-annual Variability and Association with Changing ClimateScientific Reports, 2017
- Large Reductions in Solar Energy Production Due to Dust and Particulate Air PollutionEnvironmental Science & Technology Letters, 2017
- Bridging greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy deployment target: Comparative assessment of China and IndiaApplied Energy, 2016
- India’s CO 2 emission pathways to 2050: What role can renewables play?Applied Energy, 2014
- Anthropogenic Aerosols and the Weakening of the South Asian Summer MonsoonScience, 2011
- Global Bathymetry and Elevation Data at 30 Arc Seconds Resolution: SRTM30_PLUSMarine Geodesy, 2009
- Effects of Black Carbon Aerosols on the Indian MonsoonJournal of Climate, 2008
- A GCM study of effects of radiative forcing of sulfate aerosol on large scale circulation and rainfall in East Asia during boreal springGeophysical Research Letters, 2007
- Evaluation of global wind powerJournal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2005
- Atmospheric brown clouds: Impacts on South Asian climate and hydrological cycleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2005