Wind climate analysis in complex terrains

• The statistical characterization of the wind velocity in complex areas is analysed.
• The transfer chain from the anemometric stations to the target site is described.
• The effect of incompleteness or discontinuity of datasets is taken into account.
• The interpolation of different sources of data is modeled and discussed.
• Procedures are applied to wide datasets acquired in the “Wind and Ports” EU project.

This paper deals with the statistical characterization of the wind velocity in complex terrains based on the measured data from unevenly spaced long-term anemometric stations. Three crucial issues are considered: (1) the incompleteness or discontinuity of the long-term datasets and its effects on the statistical analysis; (2) the consistency of the data transfer procedure from a reference site to a target site based on numerical simulations of the wind fields; and, (3) the techniques to transfer and interpolate data from concurrent anemometric datasets to a target site. These aspects are discussed considering, as a reference pilot test case, the wind climate of five port areas in the High Tyrrhenian Sea, namely Genoa, Savona, La Spezia, Livorno and Bastia, studied in the framework of the European project “Wind and Ports”.