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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Saudi Arabia’s Solar and Wind Energy Penetration
T2 - Future Performance and Requirements
AU - Alharbi, Fahad
AU - Csala, Dénes
PY - 2020/1/27
Y1 - 2020/1/27
N2 - Saudi Arabia fully depends on fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas to generate its electricity. Fossil fuels may have limited life and a history of fluctuating costs, which will lead to multiple issues that can affect the energy security of this country in the long-term. Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) is a concept different to “energy security”, which must consider the solar and wind energy as basic sources of energy supplies in Saudi Arabia. Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) and Brownian Motion (BM) approaches were employed to predict the future behaviour of solar and wind energy, along with long-term temperature performance, based on 69 years of historical daily data. MCS and BM were employed to provide a wide range of options for future prediction results. A validation exercise showed that the north-western region was the most highly recommended region for deployment of solar and wind energy applications due to an abundance of solar and wind energy resources with low temperature supported by a clearer sky during the year. This is followed by the southern region, which exhibited good solar and wind energy resources. This study can be considered as a roadmap to meet the climate and sustainability goals by providing a long-term overview of solar energy, wind energy, and temperature performance in some countries that have a lack of long-term future prediction analysis such as Saudi Arabia.
AB - Saudi Arabia fully depends on fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas to generate its electricity. Fossil fuels may have limited life and a history of fluctuating costs, which will lead to multiple issues that can affect the energy security of this country in the long-term. Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) is a concept different to “energy security”, which must consider the solar and wind energy as basic sources of energy supplies in Saudi Arabia. Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) and Brownian Motion (BM) approaches were employed to predict the future behaviour of solar and wind energy, along with long-term temperature performance, based on 69 years of historical daily data. MCS and BM were employed to provide a wide range of options for future prediction results. A validation exercise showed that the north-western region was the most highly recommended region for deployment of solar and wind energy applications due to an abundance of solar and wind energy resources with low temperature supported by a clearer sky during the year. This is followed by the southern region, which exhibited good solar and wind energy resources. This study can be considered as a roadmap to meet the climate and sustainability goals by providing a long-term overview of solar energy, wind energy, and temperature performance in some countries that have a lack of long-term future prediction analysis such as Saudi Arabia.
KW - prediction
KW - Monte Carlo Simulation
KW - Brownian Motion
KW - solar and wind energy
KW - Saudi Arabia
KW - north-western region
KW - southern region
U2 - 10.3390/en13030588
DO - 10.3390/en13030588
M3 - Journal article
VL - 13
JO - Energies
JF - Energies
SN - 1996-1073
IS - 3
M1 - 588
ER -