Anyone planning a wind farm needs precise information about the prevailing wind conditions. The NEWA (New European Wind Atlas) research project, in which Oldenburg researchers were also involved, is now providing the necessary data.
The windiest places in Europe are widely scattered across the continent: the wind blows particularly reliably in Norway's Jostedalsbreen National Park, over the northernmost tip of Scotland and on the coast of Croatia. This is shown by a look at the New European Wind Atlas - a new web portal that has been online since 27 June. Other climate data can also be called up there and displayed on a map - such as the average air temperature, specific humidity or maximum wind speed.
Thirty partners from eight European countries have been working together on the realisation of the wind atlas since 2015. The University of Oldenburg with the Centre for Wind Energy Research (ForWind), the Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics and Energy System Technology IEE and the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems IWES form the German consortium of the European research project.
One aim was to develop standardised online maps for site assessment: From the North Cape to Sicily and from Portugal to Turkey, wind farm developers can now compare wind resources according to the same criteria - and search for the best locations.
Basis for better planning
"Because the wind resources are mapped much more accurately in the new wind atlas than was previously possible, wind farms can be planned better and more cost-effectively in future," says ForWind scientist Dr Björn Witha, who played a key role on the German side in the simulations that provided the necessary data for the wind atlas.
The basis for the wind atlas was a weather model. Witha and his colleagues used it to simulate the wind conditions throughout Europe for the past 30 years. In doing so, they virtually laid a grid over the continent with a grid spacing of three kilometres. For each node of the grid, they calculated various climate data at several heights above the ground - a feat that required extensive scientific preparatory work and the use of the Mare Nostrum supercomputer at the University of Barcelona.
The information on the long-term wind climate can now be accessed online for every point in the European Union. Among other things, interactive maps, time series and statistics on wind speed and other wind energy-relevant parameters are available at various altitudes. "The scope and resolution of NEWA are unique," reports Witha. The fact that the data is freely available is also unusual.
The international NEWA project started in 2015 and was financed by national funding programmes of the partner countries and EU funds totalling 13.5 million euros. On the German side, NEWA was funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy with around 1.5 million euros.