The optimal planning of wind energy capacity expansion in the complex terrain of Ecuador requires reliable meteorological datasets. However, a review of existing datasets revealed a lack of adequate, long-term, and validated wind datasets with sufficient spatial and temporal resolution for the country.
The main goal of this project was to generate a long-term and high-resolved wind resource dataset over Ecuador’s mainland and the Galapagos Islands using numerical weather prediction models. For this purpose, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale model forced by initial and boundary conditions from ERA5 reanalysis data was used to generate 14 years (2005-2018) of gridded meteorological data.
This project contains hourly data of wind speed, wind direction, and wind power density at a 3 km grid spacing covering Ecuador’s mainland and the Galapagos Islands. The wind dataset presented in this project provides the basis for further research in energy system modeling and planning.