Solar and wind energy resources of the Eger Region

Abstract

The spatial interpolation and mapping of renewable energy resources is an important task of potential estimation of atmospheric renewable energy sources. First the global radiation on horizontal surfaces and near-surface wind speed at 10 m height above the surface (not at 60-120 m, which is the height of contemporary wind turbines) is measured. Based on standard meteorological observations, the experts of the Hungarian Meteorological Service elaborated a series of digital maps with 0.1°×0.1° resolution. The grid-point values are based on homogenised data using MASH theory and software. The study tackles solar and wind energy from four aspects. Firstly, a trial for validation of the gridded data is provided by a comparison between a single station, Eger and the very closely located grid-point values. Secondly, the annual cycles of the areal-mean global radiation and wind speed are presented, based on the gridded data of a selected area of 50×50 km. Both the averages and the standard deviations of the diurnal mean values are presented for the 1981-2010 reference period. Presenting the maps of the distribution within the area is the third issue with average and standard deviation values. Finally, the point-wise trends are drawn for both energy sources in the single grid-point used in the aspect one in 1981-2010 and also in the nearby located stations for comparison. The trend of solar energy is positive, whereas the trend for wind energy (speed cube) is negative in the given 30 year period. Since, mainly warming characterised those three decades in the Northern Hemisphere, the trends might also be interpreted as responses to the large-scale forcing, though the observed behaviour does not necessarily mean causal relationship with the global tendencies.