Future Projections of Wind Energy Potential in East Asia Using the CORDEX-East Asia High-Resolution Multiple Regional Climate Models

East Asia is a highly industrialized region with elevated GHGs emissions from extensive fossil fuel use. To achieve the Paris Agreement’s primary goal, an increase in the production of renewable energy is required in this region. Renewable energy generation, such as photovoltaic or wind power, is directly affected by weather and climate. Therefore, a detailed investigation of present and future changes in future renewable energy production potential using high-resolution and reliable climate data should be conducted to develop renewable energy policies. This study investigated recent changes in Wind Energy Potential (Wpot) over East Asia and projected them for the future period using the CORDEX-East Asia phase Ⅱ high-resolution multiple regional climate models. The averaged Wpot over the past 40 years (1979-2018) was highest in western and eastern Inner Mongolia across all seasons, and the recent Wpot in East Asia generally increased in spring, autumn, and winter, and decreased in summer, but had large inter-regional variability. In particular, the recent increase in Korea and Inner Mongolia was the largest in spring. Moreover, in inner Mongolia, wind speeds from 12 m s^-1 or higher to less than 25 m s^-1, which are the highest efficiency sections, were the most frequent and had the highest rate of increase. In the case of the RCP2.6 scenario, Wpot will increase considerably in central and southern China in the near future from 2021 to 2050 and decrease in summer in Korea, and will increase throughout East Asia in the mid-future (2051-2080) than in the near future, and in the far future (2081-2099) is projected to decrease. In the RCP8.5 scenario, the difference between regions is larger than that of the RCP2.6 scenario, and the increase is projected to be larger in central and southern China.

 

Acknowledgments: This work was funded by the Korea Meteorological Administration Research and Development Program under Grant KMI(KMI2021-00913).