Wind atlas for Egypt: Measurements, micro- and mesoscale modelling

The results of a comprehensive, 8-year wind resource assessment programme in Egypt are presented. The objective has been to provide reliable and accurate wind atlas data sets for evaluating the potential wind power output from large electricity-producing wind turbine installations. The regional wind climates of Egypt have been determined by two independent methods: a traditional wind atlas based on observations from more than 30 stations all over Egypt, and a numerical wind atlas based on long-term reanalysis data and a mesoscale model (KAMM). The mean absolute error comparing the two methods is about 10% for two large-scale KAMM domains covering all of Egypt, and typically about 5% for several smaller-scale regional domains. The numerical wind atlas covers all of Egypt, whereas the meteorological stations are concentrated in six regions. The numerical wind atlas database, in combination with SRTM 3 elevation data and satellite imagery, provide the means for immediate WAsP wind resource assessments anywhere in Egypt. In addition to the very high wind resource in the Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba, the wind atlas has discovered a large region in the Western Desert with a fairly high resource – close to consumers and the electrical grid. The KAMM simulations seem to capture the main features of the wind climate of Egypt, but in regions where the horizontal wind gradients are large, the uncertainties are large as well and additional measurements are required. The results are now published in a Wind Atlas for Egypt.