Assessment of the offshore wind technical potential for the Brazilian Southeast and South regions

Abstract The paper presents an assessment of the technical potential of the offshore wind resources of the Southeast and South regions along the Brazilian coastline using atmospheric reanalysis databases. At first, three atmospheric reanalysis databases, CFSv2, ERA5 and MERRA2, are validated using measured data provided by the PNBOIA program. Afterwards, to estimate the technical potential, two approaches are considered for calculating the usable area on the sea surface. The first approach considers the entire area from the shoreline to the limit of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) along the coastline. In the second approach, some areas are excluded due to technical and environmental restrictions. The NREL 6-MW wind turbine with a capacity density of 3 M W / k m 2 is used for the energy production calculation. The results include the spatial distribution of the wind speed, wind power density, annual energy production and capacity factor, and other important parameters, presented for different water depth intervals.