Portugal

During 2005, Portugal reinforced the tendency shown during 2004 of high growth rate of wind capacity installation. Also visible was some simplification of critical administrative processes concerning the implementation of renewable energy projects and, for the second year in a row, Portugal almost doubled the installed wind power capacity. In the following sections, a synthesis of the actual situation is presented with a main focus on the Portuguese current state of development and trends

Impact of Wind Generation Fluctuations in the Design and Operation of Power Systems

In this paper, the impact of the wind time variability and the spatial smoothing effect in mountainous complex terrains, usually taken as 1/sqrt(N) for fast fluctuations, is studied. The dimension of the regions, the type of electrical clustering of large numbers of wind turbines and the local meteorological effects are addressed and conclusions drawn on selected experimental case studies

From Wind to Hybrid: A Contribution to the Optimal Design of Utility-Scale Hybrid Power Plants

ABSTRACT: When a substantial number of wind parks are approaching the end of their lifespan, and developers of renewables are facing decisions about what to do with their assets, concepts such as hybrid power plants are emerging as a promising solution to enable renewable integration in a cost-effective and robust manner. This work proposes a decision-aid algorithm to perform a comprehensive analysis of hybrid power plants, focusing on the energetic contribution and economic feasibility of converting existing wind power plants into hybrid power plants (i.e., installing photovoltaic panels and a storage system). The analysis was performed by comparing the option of converting existing wind plants into hybrid plants with a pure repowering exercise or overplanting using wind technology only. The obtained results unequivocally demonstrate the added value of hybrid power plants as they promote: (i) a higher installed capacity and yearly capacity factor (up to 50%); (ii) an increased efficiency of existing electric infrastructures; and (iii) a positive contribution to a sustainable energy system with the ability to generate economic value.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Impact of weather conditions on the windows of opportunity for operation of offshore wind farms in portugal

The deployment of offshore wind parks face several challenges. Among them are the difficulties introduced by the atmospheric and sea conditions in accessing those wind parks. A window of opportunity is a timeframe when weather and sea conditions are acceptable and enable to perform specific tasks in the installation and operation/maintenance of the offshore wind park. This study identifies typical time periods of windows of opportunity to access three offshore Portuguese maritime regions. The accessibility conditions also take into account the system type transportation method for local access, namely, rubber boat, boat with OAS or helicopter. It was concluded that Portugal has adequate conditions for offshore site maintenance strategies, with a large number of windows of opportunity, but they are relatively short, therefore the installation of offshore wind parks must be carefully planned. This is an important factor in favor of the offshore wind farm deployments on the country

A new methodology for urban wind resource assessment

In the latest years the wind energy sector experienced an exponential growth all over the world. What started as a deployment of onshore projects, soon moved to offshore and, more recently to the urban environment within the context of smart cities and renewable micro-generation. However, urban wind projects using micro turbines do not have enough profit margins to enable the setup of comprehensive and expensive measurement campaigns, a standard procedure for the deployment of large wind parks. To respond to the wind assessment needs of the future smart cities a new and simple methodology for urban wind resource assessment was developed. This methodology is based on the construction of a surface involving a built area in order to estimate the wind potential by treating it as very complex orography. This is a straightforward methodology that allows estimating the sustainable urban wind potential, being suitable to map the urban wind resource in large areas. The methodology was applied to a case study and the results enabled the wind potential assessment of a large urban area being consistent with experimental data obtained in the case study area, with maximum deviations of the order of 10% (mean wind speed) and 20% (power density)

Enhancing wind power forecast accuracy using the weather research and forecasting numerical model-based features and artificial neuronal networks

ABSTRACT: Forecasting with accuracy the quantity of energy produced by wind power plants is crucial to enabling its optimal integration into power systems and electricity markets. Despite the remarkable improvements in the wind forecasting systems in recent years, large errors can still be observed, especially for longer time horizons. This work focuses on identifying new numerical weather prediction (NWP)-based features aiming to improve the overall quality of wind power forecasts. The methodology also incorporates a sequential forward feature selection algorithm. This algorithm was designed to select iteratively the meteorological features which minimize the wind forecast errors. The methodology was applied separately to seven wind parks in Portugal with different climate characteristics. The proposed approach allowed a reduction between 13% and 37% in the root mean square errors of wind power forecasts, compared with a baseline scenario. While the meteorological features identified for each wind park showed similarities within regions with analogous wind power generation profiles, each wind park required specific meteorological parameters as input data to obtain the best performance. Thus, the results show to be crucial to select the most relevant features of a specific site to maximize the accuracy of a wind power forecast.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A GIS methodology for planning sustainable renewable energy deployment in Portugal

ABSTRACT: A Geographical Information System (GIS) methodology was developed to identify and characterize suitable areas for deploying renewable energy projects. The methodology enables to compute the sustainable renewable energy potential in an area under study and can be implemented for different spatial scales, ranging from local to national levels, while operating with different restriction layers. This GIS-based method has been successfully applied to wind energy deployment studies in Continental Portugal and other foreign countries (e.g. Venezuela, Mozambique among others). Results from several development plans using this methodology enable to conclude it is an adequate tool for planning sustainable renewable energy deployment both for onshore and offshore regions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio