Offshore Wind Potential in the Yucatan Peninsula

Renewable resources have positioned themselves as the most important means to an energy revolution. The expected decrease of fossil fuels availability and their negative impact on the environment has led to rethinking the strategies to fulfill the increase in global energy demand. In countries such as Denmark, Netherlands, and Germany, it is expected that wind energy will satisfy most of its energy consumption in the short term. In these countries, wind farms are mostly offshore, due to a higher energy potential, and environmental policies. In Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula currently has several wind farm projects inland. However, there are environmental and social problems that put these projects at risk. As an alternative, offshore wind farms present several advantages, including the wind potential which is higher than in inland areas.

In this work, we present the characteristics of the land and sea wind field with data from the WRF model from 2005 to 2016. We validated the WRF data with wind measurements provided by automatic weather stations from the National Meteorological Service (SMN) and the Marine Secretary (SEMAR). We analyzed the wind potential both inland and offshore to estimate the competitiveness of Yucatan against the wind farms in Europe and the United States. For Yucatan, we selected the area with highest potential offshore and proposed a marine wind farm, for which we calculated the wind potential. The results show that a possible Yucatan offshore farm has a wind potential within an ideal range to reach a maximum power level while providing several advantages such as a shallow shelf, mild wave conditions and appropriate depths far from the coast. When compared to other wind farms around the world and land parks in Mexico, offshore wind farms in Yucatan result as a feasible solution to renewable energies in Mexico.