Tuulen puute iskenyt Euroopan tuulivoimaan

The current heatwave in Western Europe is also contributing to a ‘wind drought,’ negatively impacting wind farm operators across the region, which includes the U.K., France, Spain, Germany and much of Scandinavia. Meanwhile, solar power plant operators are seeing increased production of solar energy because irradiance is up in many of the same markets.

This is according to wind and solar performance maps of Europe by Vaisala, a company that collects and analyzes weather-related data globally. Vaisala has for a long time recommended that renewable energy power producers create a balanced portfolio of wind and solar assets in order to account for situations exactly like what is occurring in Europe right now.

The performance maps show that wind farm operators saw the available resource in July dip by as much as 20 percent from long-term averages, while solar irradiance in many of the same markets was up to 20 percent above average. The high-pressure system over Europe that caused these anomalous conditions is expected to persist until October.

These conditions follow another notable ‘wind drought’ across the U.S. in 2015, which had a widespread financial impact. “The 2015 conditions caused many wind energy investors in the U.S. to think very seriously about how they could diversify their portfolios, not just geographically, but also by technology,” said Dr. Pascal Storck, Director of Renewable Energy, Vaisala.

“This new data shows that large-scale anomalies are not a one-time occurrence, and it may be time for the European market to follow suit in thinking about how it can become ‘climate resilient’.”  [rew]