Offshore Wind Energy Potential Around the East Coast of the Red Sea, KSA
Abstract
Under its Vision 2030, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) announced an ambitious strategy to diversify their economy from oil dependency. One of the goals of the vision is an initial target to produce 9.5 GW of electricity from renewable energy sources. Offshore wind energy conversion is considered to be mature technology with more than 12 GW of installed capacity globally. Offshore wind has advantages when compared with onshore wind, such as, higher wind speed, reduced turbulence, minimal visual and noise impacts. KSA has two shorelines, one is laying on the Arabian Gulf and the other is on the Red Sea. The work presented here evaluates offshore wind potentials in in the East Coast of the Red Sea in KSA which was chosen due minimum restrictions and has no close oil extraction facilities. The evaluation was based on a Boolean Mask model linked coupled analysis undertaken in Geographical Information System developed for the Red Sea area. Using the UK’s London Array wind farm as a minimum required area for offshore wind farms, the work identifies ten different locations as possible areas for the first offshore wind farms in KSA. The analysis considered the deployment of two types of turbine of capacities 3.6MW and 5MW. The results for the higher capacity turbine indicate that over 12.3 GW of offshore wind power can be generated from the identified sites. These results and the produced location maps could be used to help stakeholders in KSA in planning for the exploitation of offshore wind energy in KSA. Thus providing a pathway to contribute to achieving the 9.5 GW national target. Keywords: Wind energy, offshore wind, GIS, Boolean Mask, Red Sea, KSA