The rapid increase in wind speed since 2012 in China and its effect on wind power generation sector

Abstract:

Recent studies reported a global terrestrial surface wind speed reversal in the past decade after several decades’ stilling, which is inspiring for the wind power industry. However, the long-term trends and spatiotemporal characteristics of wind speed in China are still uncertain, with many recent studies indicating a continuous stilling trend in this world’s largest installed wind capacity country. Given that wind power varies with the cube of wind speed, clear understanding of the wind speed change is critical for optimizing China’s wind power production. In this study, we investigated the long-term trend of wind speed from 1980 to 2019 in China using the three observation-based datasets from various sources, and found that wind speed recovery did happen in China (p < 0.001) and the rate of rise was more than four times of the declining before. We also utilized the in-situ observation from the China Meteorological Administration to analyze the spatial and temporal difference, which confirmed the robust of our findings. It is found that the recovery occurred in most parts of China except for the southeast coast and was particularly significant in summer and autumn. Besides, we found that the capacity factor in China was significantly correlated to the cube of wind speed averaged over the country and substantially increased since 2012, indicating a greater gain in wind power production from stronger winds. The findings can not only guide the renewable energy development in China but also inspire further studies on the cause of the change of wind speed.