Assessing the wind energy potential of China in considering its variability/intermittency

While wind energy experienced massive deployment in the last decades, the intermittency of wind energy hindered its usage and hence leads to curtailment. It is imperative to quantify and mitigate the intermittency/variability of wind energy for research community as well as industry, but there are no consensus methods yet. The present study took the first attempt to quantify the cost of the variability/intermittency of wind energy with battery energy storage system, aiming at comprehensively assessing the spatial distribution of the exploitability of wind energy in China. The research found that the most abundant wind resources are located in Tibet Plateau, Hexi Corridor, Inner Mongolia in considering the abundance of wind resources, land use type, and landforms, as well as the variability of wind energy. In the near future, wind farms with the advanced energy storage technology in 2030 or 2050 could provide stable wind energy with marketing comparable prices, which is lower than the price of current coal-fired electricity (about 0.5 CNY/kWh). It is worth to note that the variability of wind energy in Qinghai Tibet Plateau could lead to high demanding of storage capacity and therefore unaffordable cost. The proposed methodology can be applied in different regions worldwide. The results of this study could also be a scientific foundation for policy makers for wind power development in China mainland.