Winds Were Above And Below Average Norm For Q4’14
The fourth quarter of 2014 saw winds playing very much against type, according to AWS Truepower’s Wind Trends Bulletin.
The Wind Trends Bulletin, released quarterly by consulting consulting firm AWS Truepower, provides wind operators, investors, and plant-owners with expert analysis of wind conditions for use with wind energy resources.
According to the Bulletin for the fourth quarter of 2014, winds were “above normal relative to the long term, fourth quarter norm across the northern and western United States, much of South America, northern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, China, Russia, and portions of India and East Asia.”
Conversely, “winds were below normal across southern and central portions of the United States, much of Europe, East and West Africa, Indochina, and nearly all of Australia” as seen below.
Q4 2014 Global Wind Anomalies
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Below normal winds continued from the third quarter into the fourth across the Midwest, Southern Plains, and Southwest of the US, and much of Europe, where large areas of Central and Easern Europe experienced wind speeds 10% to 15% below the long-term norm.
Again, above-normal wind speeds continued through to Q4 in the Pacific Northwest, High Plains, and Mid-Atlantic states of the US, as well as the North Atlantic and North Sea in Europe.
Q3 2014 Global Wind Anomalies
These reports fascinate me from a scientific point of view, as well as in how it affects what I believe to be the pre-eminent renewable energy resource moving forward. It would be helpful if, sometime in the future, these bulletins could be coupled with wind electricity data to see how dramatically these anomalies interact with wind energy generation.
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