Spatiotemporal characteristics of wind energy resource in Hexi corridor

To study the spatiotemporal variations of wind and its power in Hexi Corridor,the natural wind speed was gotten from wind speed data of 19 stations from 1970 to 2004 and wind intensive data with 10-minute-interval of 7 wind-towers from Sep.2004 to Aug.2005 in Hexi Corridor through climatic and instant wind speed correction.The results showed that the wind speed range had little change.The climate change inclined to stable state.Effective wind speed(≥3 m/s) time and energy were more than 6 000h/a and 150 W/m2 at 10m height in most parts respectively.The wind energy increased linearly along with height in the rate of 28 W/m2 per 10 meters from 10m to 70 m.The total wind energy was rich at the height from 10m to 70 m over 1.5×1016 kWh/m2 annually and the potential annual output value reached 1×1015 Yuan RMB.The wind energy had obvious daily and monthly variation in Hexi Corridor.In a day,the occurring time of maximum or minimum wind energy value in high layer lagged to that in the low layer;the smallest wind energy occurred from 6︰00 to 8︰00 and the strongest happened from 16︰00 to 19︰00.In a year,the maximum value occurred from Mar.to Apr.and the minimum one happened in autumn.The wind energy decreased gradually from north to south with two high value centers of Anxi and Gulang in Hexi Corridor.The spatiotemporal variations of wind related to the unique underlying surface of Gobi in Hexi Corridor.