Europe has the capacity to produce more than 100 time the amount of energy it currently produces through inshore windfarms , new analytic thinking from the University of Sussex and Aarhus University has revealed .
In an analysis of all suitable sites for shoreward hint farms , the new work reveals that Europe has the potency to append enough energy for the whole world until 2050 .
The study discover that if all of Europe ’s capacity for onshore wind farms was realised , the installed nameplate capacity would be 52.5 TW - equivalent to 1 MW for every 16 European citizen .
carbon monoxide gas - authorBenjamin Sovacool , Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Sussex , enounce : “ The study is not a blueprint for development but a guidebook for policymakers indicating the potential of how much more can be done and where the prime opportunity subsist . Our bailiwick suggests that the skyline is bright for the shoreward current of air sphere and that European aspirations for a 100 % renewable free energy power grid are within our collective grasp technologically .
Onshore wind farm image good manners of Envision Energy . “Obviously , we are not saying that we should set up turbines in all the identified sites but the subject area does show the huge air current power potential justly across Europe which needs to be harness if we ’re to debar a mood catastrophe . ”
Spatial depth psychology of Geographical Information System ( GIS)-based wind Atlas allow the research team to identify around 46 % of Europe ’s territory which would be suitable for siting of onshore flatus farms .
The advanced GIS data at sub - internal levels provided a far more elaborated brainstorm and allow the team to factor out in a far greater mountain range of exclusionary factors including houses , road , restricted areas due to military or political reasons as well as terrains not suitable for wind power contemporaries .
The greater detail in this approach earmark the research team to identify more than three meter the onshore flatus electric potential in Europe than previous studies .
Peter Enevoldsen , assistant prof in the Center for Energy Technologies at Aarhus University , said : “ Critics will no doubt contend that the naturally intermittent provision of wind make believe onshore jazz vigour inapplicable to meet the global demand .
Map shows onshore density electric potential in megawatts per solid kilometre for European land . “But even without account for developments in malarky turbine technology in the forthcoming decades , shoreward current of air power is the cheapest mature source of renewable energy , and utilizing the dissimilar wind regions in Europe is the key to meet the requirement for a 100 % renewable and full decarburize get-up-and-go system . ”
The study estimates that more than 11 million extra tip turbines could be theoretically installed over almost 5 million square kilometres of suited terrain generating 497 EJ of baron which would adequately meet the expected planetary energy demand in 2050 of 430 EJ .
The authors identified Turkey , Russia , and Norway as having the greatest electric potential for succeeding wind business leader denseness although big parts of Western Europe were also considered ripe for further onshore farm because of favourable idle words speeds and unconditional areas .
Map shows potential situation for shoreward wind farm in the British Isles .
Mark Jacobson , Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University , said : “ One of the most important determination of this study , apart from the fact that it concludes that the European inshore wind potential is large than previously estimated , is that it facilitate the power of countries to plan their inshore air current resource maturation more efficiently , thereby ease the way for commitments by these countries to move alone to cleanse , renewable energy for all purposes . "
To read the full newspaper , published in the September 2019 volume of Energy Policy , visithere .
author : University of Sussex ( Neil Vowles )
