Wind power and wind farm development in Nordics

Abstract

This thesis investigates wind energy production and wind farm development in the Nordic region from a planning perspective. Our study focuses on how wind farm projects are planned, evaluated and developed under real world constraints. In the Nordic region, wind power projects face long permitting processes, expensive investments and uncertainty in the project realization. Therefore, realistic planning is very important. Additionally, we discuss the influence of technical factors such as atmospheric conditions, turbine layout, terrain characteristics and climate effects. These factors have a great effect on energy production, operational reliability and project planning. Our results show that combining probabilistic pipeline forecasting with project level technical planning provides a more reliable framework for the wind farm development in the Nordic region.