Posters

Abstract

Beyond energy-based metrics, the economic value of the wind resource increasingly depends on its temporal alignment with the power system. In power systems with high shares of variable renewable energy, wind resource assessment must therefore account not only for mean wind conditions, but also for the temporal structure of wind generation and moreover its interaction with other renewable sources and demand. This study presents a spatially explicit framework to assess the long-term evolution of wind captured prices in different European countries, grounded in standard wind resource assessment methodologies. Hourly wind power timeseries are generated for each grid cell of the analyzed countries using ERA5 reanalysis data, average long term wind speeds from Global Wind Atlas which are translated to energy using generic power curves, ensuring a consistent representation of spatial variability and temporal wind patterns across the territory. Future electricity price scenarios are constructed by combining alternative long-term system evolution pathways—characterized by different levels of renewable penetration and electrification—with hourly price structures derived from historical years exhibiting distinct climatic and generation conditions.  To preserve the physical and statistical relationships between renewable generation and price formation, wind production time series from selected historical periods are coherently combined with future price scenarios, maintaining their intrinsic temporal dependence with future assumptions for system-level generation, demand and other price-driving elements. The results are analyzed through spatial maps showing the spatial dependence and time evolution of wind captured prices for the period 2026–2050. These reveal a progressive decline in average captured prices over time, together with a strong spatial differentiation driven by temporal correlation effects.  Correlation among different generation technologies is analyzed, at local and global level, to explain the spatial and temporal dependences of wind energy production value.   Locations where wind production is weakly correlated with aggregate wind generation, or shows lower temporal coupling with solar production, systematically achieve higher captured prices. Spatial differences in wind resource time-structure therefore translate into materially different long-term economic outcomes.  This study demonstrates how analyzing the temporal evolution of wind resource patterns—while preserving their time-dependent relationship with system-level generation, demand and price-forming mechanisms—provides actionable insights for site selection, portfolio optimization and long-term investment decisions in power systems with high renewable penetration.