Greenhouse gas emissions may impact future wind energy generation

Wind energy is a growing renewable energy source with great potential, but greenhouse gas emissions and climate change may influence wind energy’s future availability across the globe. In the next century, because of climate change, wind resources may decrease in the Northern Hemisphere and sharply increase in hot spots in southern latitudes and the tropics, according to a study by University of Colorado, Boulder, researchers (Nat. Geosci. 2017, DOI: 10.1038/s41561-017-0029-9). Wind energy resources are an integral part of many nations’ strategies to meet carbon dioxide emissions reduction targets. Globally, installed wind power capacity has grown by some 22% per year since 2006, and wind power now provides about 3.7% of energy worldwide. However, assessments of future wind energy resources are usually based on today’s climate without considering that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions will continue to modify global atmospheric circulation and temperature. In the new work, the researchers combined wind industry power calculations with an ensemble of 10 global climate models under high and low greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.