Spatiotemporal variability and climate forcing mechanisms of wind and solar energy in northwest China

Abstract

As a pivotal region for China’s wind and solar energy strategic deployment, northwest China holds critical importance in the national energy transition. Our integrated analysis reveals concerning multidecadal declines in wind energy resources (WER) and solar energy resources (SER) - climate-sensitive parameters requiring urgent mechanistic elucidation. Through the synergistic application of meteorological station networks, reanalysis datasets, and machine learning architectures, we establish three key findings: (i) both resources demonstrate regime shifts with distinct phases - initial growth, transitional decline, and accelerated depletion - superimposed with significant 29 - 30-year oscillation signals (wavelet analysis); (ii) WER and SER display marked differences in spatial evolution; WER shows an increasing trend from south to north, while SER shows a decreasing trend from the central region to the surrounding areas; and (iii) the main controlling factors of WER have shifted from air-sea cycle dominance to inter-regional climate variability, while SER exhibits the opposite trend. This is mainly attributed to a significant reduction in cloud cover and a marked decrease in the rate of increase of the daily maximum temperature. This study demonstrates that synoptic-scale circulation reorganizations override local anthropogenic impacts in determining the viability of renewable energy resources.

Keywords

Global warming / Wind energy resources / Solar energy resources / Spatiotemporal characteristics / Driving mechanism

Funding

This work was jointly supported by the Guangdong University of Petrochemical Technology (GDUPT) Talents Recruitment Project (grant number: 2019rc098), the Academic Affairs of GDUPT for the Goal Problem- Oriented Teaching Innovation and Practice Project (grant number: 41967038), and the Scientific Research Innovation Foundation of Yunnan Province (grant number: KC-242410028).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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