Estudo estimativo básico para implantação de turbinas eólicas offshore no litoral do estado do Rio Grande do Norte

Abstract

Wind energy, as a renewable source of energy, produces no emissions and is an excellent alternative in environmental terms. Wind power generation is expected to increase significantly in the near future. Over the last years, wind energy has grown from a small niche in the electricity area to a well-established source of electricity production in many countries. Estimates predict a strong increase in wind power development over the next 15-20 years. Much of this development will be offshore wind power. This implies that great investment will be done in offshore wind farms over the next decades. For this reason, offshore wind farms promise to become an important source of energy in the near future. The purpose of this work is to present a basic estimative study for the implementation of offshore wind turbines in the coast of Rio Grande do Norte, through a case study in the municipality of São Miguel do Gostoso. Brazil has a large coastline, with approximately 3.6 million km² in its Exclusive Economic Zone, an area that can be used to generate offshore wind energy. The wind data for the analysis were obtained from the MERRA project (Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications) in its version 2, denominated of MERRA-2, that is a model of mesoscale for generation of data of long-term of global reanalysis, made available by NASA. For the calculation of energy generation it was taken an interval of 3 years (From 1st may 2014 to 1st may 2017) from a time series of wind velocity at 50m height, chosen at coordinates S 5.000000 W 35.625000, a maritime region on the coast of São Miguel do Gostoso. Through the power law, that wind velocity was extrapolated to the cube heights of 3 wind turbine models chosen for analysis. Weibull frequency distribution and annual energy production were calculated. The result shows that among the three wind turbines of 5 MW analyzed, which proved to be more appropriate to the installation, according to the conditions raised was the offshore wind turbine Gamesa G132.