Projected Changes of Wind Power Potential over a vulnerable eastern Mediterranean area using EURO-CORDEX RCMs according rcp4.5 and rcp8.5 scenarios

Under the threat of climate crisis, renewables are an alternative that are aligned to European principles for the clean energy and green transition strategy. The revised Renewable Energy Directive of European Union set as a target for renewables a minimum of 42.5% till 2030. Past studies have shown that Eastern Mediterranean presents notable short and long term wind speed variability due to climate change. In this context, this work investigates the mean changes in Wind Energy Potential (WEP) in a typical height of offshore turbines (80m) over the climatic sensitive area of Aegean Sea during early (from 2010 to 2039), middle (from 2040 to 2069) and late (from 2070 to 2099) periods of 21st century with reference to a basis period (the historical period from 1970 to 2005). Data, available from EURO-CORDEX project under the moderate and extreme future scenarios (rcp4.5 and rcp8.5) as well as the recent past (historical) period (from 1970 to 2005), are analyzed here. In both future scenarios, the majority of model simulations indicates increase of the WEP over the Aegean area as compared to the basis (historical) period. In particular, the maximum increase of WEP is presented in extreme (rcp8.5) as compared to moderate (rcp4.5) scenario. The most significant changes are shown over the southeastern (the straights between Crete and Rhodes Island) and central-eastern Aegean area.