Global status of wind power generation: theory, practice, and challenges

ABSTRACT

The existence of environmental concerns and constraints has led to a much greater necessity for the development of renewable energy resources. Wind energy resources are one of the most promising avenues for renewable energy generation, and the field has experienced significant technological innovation and growth over the past few years. This paper reviews various issues related to wind-power generation resources. Current trends, over the last two decades, of increasing wind turbine sizes, rated power-generation capacity, efficiencies, and the actual size of wind farm facilities are projected to continue. It is theorized that the current global installed capacity of wind power generation may increase from the current generation of 540 (2017) to 5800 GW by 2050. Wind energy potential, in terms of vertical wind speed profile, mean wind-speed distribution, turbulence effects and gust, are discussed in detail in this paper. A decreasing trend in the cost of initial capital investment and the levelized cost of energy (LCOE), for both onshore and offshore wind-power generation developments, are projected to continue, although this is regionally and economy-size dependent. Key challenges have been identified for the development of wind power generation in developed and under-developed countries going forward. New approaches/developments in the field and avenues for further research or actions that can be undertaken are also outlined in this paper. Materialization of such lines of actionsmay lead to an increase in global wind energy from its current level of around 4% of the electricity generation mix to roughly 40%.

KEYWORDS:

• Renewable energy
• wind velocity
• cost of energy
• offshore engineering

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Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the research training and graduate research award for PhD studies provided by Dr. Brendan O’Kelly, Associate Professor, University of Dublin, Ireland, during 2012-2014.