China offshore Wind Energy Resources Assessment With the QuikSCAT Satellite Data and Numerical Simulation

Applying NASA remote sensing data from Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) wind observations with the 12.5km resolution twice a day (1999 – current, 105-135° E, 15-45° N). And with the help of meteorological observation station wind data on an oil platform in west Bohai bay, and another on a small islet in South China Sea, we compare these two sets data and find out the QuikSCAT data is reliable. Then we interpolate QuikSCAT data into 0.1° grid, we calculate and analysis China offshore wind resources effective density of wind energy (EDWE) at 10 meters high above the sea level. And find that EDWE is rich in offshore area. The highest EDWE is in Taiwan Strait and North and South of the strait, with the EDWE 600-800W/m², the next highest is East China Sea and South China Sea. The lowest EDWE is Yellow Sea and Bohai bay, less than 400W/m². At the same time, The PSU/NCAR meso-scale model (known as MM5) is applied to simulate the wind speed in China Sea (12 km resolution) a year. And the wind resources maps at several heights (10m etc) come out. Compared the MM5 and satellite results in China Sea with the historical ships observation data, it is showed that the distribution of wind speed from satellite remote sensing and MM5 results are similar, but needs revised. To sum up numerical simulation and satellite inversion are effective methods for wind resources assessment on the sea.