Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1907-001X

Abstract

The analysis of the spatiotemporal variability of wind power remains limited during the planning stage of an offshore wind farm. This study provides a framework to investigate how offshore wind power varies along the Central California Coast over diurnal and seasonal time scales, which is critical for reliability and functionality of the grid system. We find that offshore wind power in this region peaks during evening hours across all seasons and maximizes in spring and summer. The timing of peak offshore wind power production better aligns with that of peak demand across California than solar and land-based wind power production, highlighting its potential to fill the supply gap when demand is high and power production from other renewable energy sources is low. We further assess the value of offshore wind power using demand-based and wholesale market metrics. Both metrics indicate high potential value of offshore wind power over most areas in this region. Finally, we show that the estimate of power production is significantly biased when using mean wind speeds that do not account for temporal variability, leading to potentially inaccurate predictions about locations that are expected to produce the most power. These results reiterate the importance in considering spatiotemporal variability in wind power for accurately calculating the value of offshore wind development.

Disciplines

Biology | Economics | Marine Biology | Physics

Number of Pages

10

Publisher statement

Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

Download

Share

COinS
 

URL: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/phy_fac/594