The Impacts of Climate Change on wind energy Generation in New Zealand скачать в хорошем качестве

The Impacts of Climate Change on wind energy Generation in New Zealand

OERC Symposium 2025 Speaker: Francesca Bryant Brown University of Otago Authors: Francesca Bryant-Brown, Jen Purdie Climate change and the need for decarbonisation is driving a rapid transition towards a fully renewable electricity supply. Wind energy plays a crucial role in this transition; however, one of the major challenges in expanding wind generation is the variability of wind speeds and their potential long-term changes under climate change. Understanding how future wind speed distributions may evolve is essential for ensuring the reliability and resilience of New Zealand’s renewable electricity system. This study investigates how climate change may alter wind speed distributions across New Zealand and the implications for electricity generation potential under future climate scenarios. Historical wind observations were obtained for two wind farm sites: Te Uku and White Hill. Projected changes to wind speeds at these sites were derived using downscaled Global Climate Model (GCMs) projections for nearby locations Hamilton and Lumsden (from NIWA). Percentile-based change factors were then applied to estimate future wind speed distributions for the period 2054–2064 at Te Uku and White Hill. These distributions were then used to calculate future power output under different climate scenarios, relative to the historical baseline, using power curves obtained confidentially from Meridian Energy. Our results indicate that while the average change in wind speeds for each site show an increase, the change within different parts of the wind speed distribution is not linear. Higher wind speeds changed more than mean wind speeds, but the direction of change was less certain. The relationship between wind speed and wind power is also non-linear, and so minor changes in the wind speed distribution showed significant changes to the resultant power output. There was a significant spread of the magnitude of projections between different downscaled GCMs, but for most findings the direction of change was consistent.