Estimating the offshore wind resources of the State of Ceará in Brazil

The onshore wind power is consolidated; the challenge is to reach the same level of maturity for offshore exploitation. Brazil has no offshore wind power plants and there are few studies in this direction. This paper aims to estimate the offshore wind resources in the State of Ceará, in Brazil. The investigation uses a mesoscale atmospheric computer model, the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS), with horizontal resolution of 2 km, which estimates the offshore average wind speed, average wind direction, power density and turbulence taking into account the bathymetry data and navigation routes along the coast of Ceará. The wind potential was evaluated in three representative periods, La Niña, El Niño and Neutral year, analyzing the dry and rainy season for each period. The results indicate an average wind speed above 8 m/s and power density above 720 W/m2 no matter the period evaluated, in the dry season. The predominant wind direction in the observed dry periods was from East to West and the turbulence intensity is smaller during dry season of El Niño. Besides, the bathymetry of the State of Ceará is shallow and the large ships route is far beyond the coast, offering no danger to future endeavors.