This study intends to depict the availability of the sustainable offshore wind energy for Continental Portugal and identify the preliminary areas for developing offshore wind parks. Two scenarios were performed to distinct the different offshore wind turbine prototypes assembled by the manufactory energy sector – bottom fixed and floating models. The results achieved until now indicate that Portugal has a very large potential for offshore wind deployments ready to be exploited, especially for deep offshore solutions.

The sustainable offshore wind potential for the west and south coasts of Portugal is presented. Results were carried out using an atmospheric mesoscale model and GIS tools. Unlike previous common opinions, the preliminary results show the existence of interesting areas for the developing of offshore wind parks.

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.

RESUMO: Este trabalho apresenta uma metodologia de avaliação preliminar do recurso eólico numa área urbana através do uso de um modelo digital de terreno urbano (DTM urbano) desenvolvido pelos autores tendo a sua metodologia de criação já apresentado resultados promissores, sobretudo quando aplicada em modelos comerciais CFD. Neste trabalho recorreu-se a um modelo comercial de referência do sector de energia eólica para o cálculo do recurso do vento, o modelo WaspEngineering, e ao modelo freeware CDF-OpenFoam, de forma a avaliar o impacto das estimativas obtidas por ambos os modelos com a utilização do modelo digital de terreno urbano. Um perfilador vertical de vento – Lidar - capaz de inferir o vento horizontal a diversas alturas acima do nível do mar foi instalado no telhado de um edifício selecionado para fins de validação do perfil vertical do vento dentro da área urbana. O modelo digital de terreno urbano permite a introdução da descrição do tecido urbano acoplado à orografia da região como se fosse um terreno complexo. Os resultados obtidos mostram que a metodologia do terreno digital urbano é favorável para estudar o comportamento do perfil vertical do vento em ambiente urbano em altíssima resolução espacial, uma vez que estão de acordo com as observações inferidas por Lidar, e por outro lado, adequada ao uso em modelos CFD de várias tipologias – comerciais e freeware.

A weather type classification scheme was implemented for the construction of a wind atlas to mainland Portugal. This methodology produced 26 different weather types computed by geostrophic vorticity at mean sea level pressure. Applying a simple calculus scheme, it is possible to find the most likely representative day for each weather type if a meteorological database with wind data is available. Each selected day can be simulated by a mesoscale model (e.g.MM5) being possible to construct the final wind atlas through the sum of the simulated days, weighted by the respective frequency factor. In this paper, it is shown that the results obtained by the application of this classification scheme for mean wind and energy density fields are very similar to long term simulations.

A methodology to construct a wind potential atlas for mainland Portugal is presented. A long term simulation with the popular MM5 mesoscale weather model was made with a whole year of reanalysis data (1999 year) in order to compute a mean wind annual cycle. Results were corrected by an intra annual variability factor and compared with four reference wind masts monitored by INETI for 12 years for validation purposes. The results obtained in this work are expected to present the wind energy developers a first estimate of the wind potential in mainland Portugal. Other useful applications can also be considered such as Tourism, territory planning and management, among others.