Validation of Danish wind time series from a new global renewable energy atlas for energy system analysis

We present a new global high-resolution renewable energy atlas (REatlas) that can be used to calculate customised hourly time series of wind and solar PV power generation. In this paper, the atlas is applied to produce 32-year-long hourly model wind power time series for Denmark for each historical and future year between 1980 and 2035. These are calibrated and validated against real production data from the period 2000 to 2010. The high number of years allows us to discuss how the characteristics of Danish wind power generation varies between individual weather years. As an example, the annual energy production is found to vary by ±10 % from the average. Furthermore, we show how the production pattern change as small onshore turbines are gradually replaced by large onshore and offshore turbines. In most energy system analysis tools, fixed hourly time series of wind power generation are used to model future power systems with high penetrations of wind energy. Here, we compare the wind power time series for 2020 from a handful of Danish models to show how current differences in model wind may result in significant differences in technical and economical model predictions