Owemes 2006, 20-22 April.

Citavecchia, Italy

Evaluation of the offshore wind potential along the Italian coasts

F. Cassola1, M. Burlando1, L. Villa1, P. Latona2, C. F. Ratto1
1

Department of Physics, University of Genoa.

Genoa Research Unit of the National Consortium of Universities for Physics of
Atmospheres and Hydrospheres (CINFAI)
Via Dodecaneso 33, 16146 Genoa, Italy;
phone +39 010 353 6464, fax +39 010 353 6354, e-mail: cassola@fisica.unige.it;
website: http://www.fisica.unige.it/atmosfera/main.htm
2
Present affiliation: National Research Council (CNR) - Azienda Mediterranea Gas e
Acqua (AMGA), Genoa, Italy.

ABSTRACT
In the present paper the realization of the Italian Offshore Wind Atlas (IOWA) is presented. The IOWA is a
natural extension and completion of the information already reported in the Italian Wind Atlas (IWA),
produced in 2002 through a collaboration between the Italian Experimental Electrotechnical Centre (CESI)
and the Department of Physics of the University of Genoa (DIFI). The wind fields above sea at different
heights all along the Italian coast of the Mediterranean Sea have been computed through a procedure that
combines statistical analyses of wind speed aloft with numerical modelling of wind flows offshore. The first
step of this methodology is the statistical analysis of 10 years of wind speed and direction data at 5000 m
above sea level from ECMWF re-analyses. The Italian offshore territory is then divided in a number of
geographic areas of the order of 200200 km2 which cover the sea as well as part of the inland in order to
take into account the local effects induced by the coastal topography. Each area is discretized with a grid step
of nearly 1 km, and it is partially overlapped with respect to its neighbouring areas in order to guarantee the
continuity and smoothness between adjacent areas. 3D wind flows are simulated by means of the diagnostic
mass-consistent code WINDS, initialised by wind aloft values. Finally, the simulated wind fields are
compared and corrected by means of the mean wind values measured in about 150 anemometric stations all
over the Italian coastal areas and taking into account the recently published Wind and Waves Atlas for the
Mediterranean Sea (WW-Medatlas). As final results, we obtained a number of maps of the mean annual wind
speed at different elevations above sea level, as well as of mean cubic wind speed, Weibull parameters and
wind energy production.
Keywords: Offshore wind field simulation, statistical-kinematic downscaling, Italian Offshore Wind Atlas.
1. INTRODUCTION
The extreme spatial and temporal variability of wind makes it difficult to perform an accurate assessment of its potential.
Nevertheless, during many years, there has been an increasing interest in finding methods to calculate wind speed
frequency distribution over complex terrain, in order to predict the energy output of a wind energy converter system
(WECS). These methods try to obtain either from measurements or numerical modelling or both the estimation of mean
wind speed near the ground.
In 2002 the Italian Wind Atlas (IWA) was produced through a collaboration between the Italian Experimental
Electrotechnical Centre (CESI) and the Department of Physics of the University of Genoa (DIFI), in the framework of
the Research on the Electric System, funded by decree of the Italian Government and developed by CESI S.p.A.
(Atlante Eolico dellItalia, 2002; Burlando et al., 2002a; Burlando et al., 2002b; Podest et al., 2002). Final result was
the average wind speed, at different elevations above ground level, over the whole Italian territory with the exception of
the seas. However, in spite of the difficulties that most of the Italian basins present for the installation of offshore wind
farms because of their depth or low wind energy density, some coastal areas, especially in the southern part of Italy, are
very attractive for wind power exploitation. Thus, the realisation of an Italian Offshore Wind Atlas (IOWA) is a natural
extension and completion of the information already reported in the IWA.
In order to guarantee the coherence and comparability between these two atlases, we applied along the shorelines of the
whole Italian Peninsula the same methodology followed for the realisation of the IWA (Burlando et al., 2002a), based
on the coupling of statistical analyses of wind speeds aloft with numerical modelling of 3D wind flows, the so-called
statistical-kinematic downscaling.
We started from an analysis of wind speed and direction data at 5000 m above ground level (a.g.l.) from the reanalyses of the global Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model of the European Centre for Medium-range
Weather Forecast (ECMWF) relative to the decade 1990-1999, in order to obtain the frequency distribution of the

Owemes 2006, 20-22 April. Citavecchia, Italy

climatological wind aloft (a compact description of ECMWF model can be found in Simmons, 1991 and Simmons et al.,
1995).
Three-dimensional wind flows were simulated all along the Italian coast of the Mediterranean Sea using the massconsistent (Ratto et al., 1994) model WINDS (Ratto et al., 1990), developed by the Department of Physics of the
University of Genoa. The volume of the 3D simulation domain is discretized with a traditional Cartesian coordinates
grid (with constant spacing) for the horizontal directions, and with conformal coordinates along the vertical axis.
WINDS has to be applied at a scale not larger than the atmospheric mesoscale (ranging from 2 up to 200 km). In order
to respect this constraint, we subdivided the whole Italian territory in 21 partially overlapping sub-areas about
200x200 km2 wide, with a grid step of 1 km. For each of these sub-areas a frequency distribution of the wind velocity at
5000 m a.g.l. is obtained from the corresponding statistical analysis of the ECMWF data.
The WINDS code has been applied 48 times (this value follow from the combination of J=16 directions and K=3
values of wind speed) over each of these 21 sub-areas to simulate 3D wind fields. Every simulation has been weighted
using the corresponding statistical frequency of the climatological wind aloft. Finally, the 21 mean wind fields, realized
over each sub-area along the shorelines of the whole Italian Peninsula, have been superimposed along their overlapping
borders in order to produce a single map of the average wind speed at different levels a.g.l.
The simulated mean annual wind fields have been corrected through a correction factor intended to make the IOWA
more realistic. This factor has been obtained taking into account the measurements performed at about 150 anemometric
stations throughout the Italian coasts, selected from the ensemble of 240 stations already used for the IWA, in order to
form a subset suitable for comparison in coastal areas. The procedure to define the correction factor for the IWA has
been described with much detail in the Appendix C of the Atlante Eolico dellItalia (2002) and in Burlando et al.
(2002b). Furthermore, in the present study, the correction factor obtained as just described has been slightly modified
by a comparison of the obtained fields with those of the recently published Wind and Waves Atlas for the
Mediterranean Sea (The Medatlas Group, 2004).
As a final result, two-dimensional maps of annual mean wind speed above sea at fixed heights are calculated from the
corresponding three-dimensional matrices through a linear interpolation among the values on the closest conformal
surfaces. The calculation of the corresponding maps of annual mean cubic wind speed, scale and shape parameters of
the Weibull distribution and annual mean energy production of a few commercial wind turbines is straightforward.
The following of this paper is organized in 8 main sections. Section 2 contains a brief description of two recent wind
atlases of the Mediterranean Sea, which provide the state of the art of the wind climatology over the entire
Mediterranean Sea. Section 3 presents a short description of the simulation code WINDS. Section 4 describes the
criteria that we adopted in the choice of the simulation domains and the construction of their corresponding topography
and roughness length maps. Section 5 explains the statistical analysis performed on the ECMWF data to calculate the
climatology of the wind aloft. Section 6 describes the performed simulations and the procedure to realize the average
wind speed maps. Section 7 explains how the wind maps have been corrected. In Section 8 the final results are
presented. Section 9 summarises conclusions and future developments.
2. OFFSHORE WIND CLIMATOLOGY OVER THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
In the last few years, two main studies concerning the wind climatology of the Mediterranean Sea have been published.
The first study aimed at the realisation of a wind and waves atlas of the mediterranean Sea. The second study focuses on
the only offshore wind climatology over the Mediterranean. In the following a brief description of these projects is
reported.
2.1 The Wind And Waves Atlas of the Mediterranean Sea
The WW-Medatlas (The Medatlas Group, 2004) has been obtained using both model data and observations (buoy and
satellite data). It is clear that on the one hand model data represent the most abundant, widely and uniformly distributed,
and continuous source of both wind and wave data. On the other hand, global model data show problems, like a steady
underestimate in the Mediterranean Sea, varying from place to place.
An extensive comparison with buoy observations shows that the level of underestimation is constant enough to consider
a calibration of the model data using satellite data. While the latter ones are sparse in space and time, it is always
possible to evaluate the corresponding model data at the satellite measurement time and position. In so doing a
sufficiently long series of co-located data for every point in a given area where the satellite has provided data can be
obtained, in order to derive, by a direct comparison, the calibration coefficient of the model data.
As far as the wind climatology is concerned, ECMWF 6 hourly wind speed fields at 10 m above sea level (a.s.l.) from
July 1992 to June 2002 have been corrected using data from Topex and ERS 1-2 altimeters. Once the calibration
coefficients have been derived at the chosen points (about 950, with 0.5 degree resolution between 6 West and 36
East for longitude, and 30 and 46 North for latitude), combining them with the model data, long reliable time series
have been obtained. Finally, a large number of statistics have been derived, locally as well as synoptically in the form of
atlases.
2.2 The Offshore Wind Climatology over the Mediterranean Basin
The offshore wind climatology over the whole Mediterranean region has been obtained by Lavagnini et al. (2006) using
ECMWF 6 hourly wind data, for a period of 24 years. More precisely, these authors considered the horizontal wind

Owemes 2006, 20-22 April. Citavecchia, Italy

components from the ECMWF re-analysis for the period January 1979 - February 1994 and the operational analysis for
the period 1994-2002 at a grid resolution of 0.5x0.5 degrees, at 850 and 700 hPa pressure levels, and at 10 m above the
sea surface. For each grid point, the mean wind speed, U, and the Weibull probability density function parameters (A,k)
have been calculated for 12 directions of 30 degrees each.
As the wind field of ECMWF at 10 meters is less accurate near the coast and in narrow basins, these statistics have been
corrected, for each grid point, with the statistics produced using 2-year runs (from 01.10.2000 to 30.09.2002) of the
Limited Area model QBOLAM, that is a parallel version of the finite-difference, primitive-equation, hydrostatic model
BOLAM (Buzzi et al., 1994; Buzzi and Malguzzi, 1997). The model domain covers the whole Mediterranean Sea with
an horizontal grid step of 10 km. To compare the climatology from the two models, the authors have considered the
outputs of QBOLAM and ECMWF for the two-year overlapping period. For each ECMWF grid point, they have
compared the values of U, A and k with the values estimated at the same grid point using QBOLAM data. This
procedure has been used to modify the Weibull parameters of the long-term data series of ECMWF wind fields in
coastal areas.
3. THE SIMULATION CODE
Numerical modelling of 3D wind flows has been performed by the mass-consistent (Ratto et al., 1994) code WINDS
(Windfield Interpolation by NonDivergent Schemes). This model has been developed at the Department of Physics of
the University of Genoa (Ratto et al., 1990; Lalas and Ratto, 1996) to perform three-dimensional wind flow simulations
over complex terrain. This model builds the wind field in two steps:

a first guess wind field is built by interpolation of measured or assumed data of various kinds (wind speed upon
the ground, aloft wind, vertical wind profile respect to a fixed point on the ground, etc.);

the final field (named non diverging or mass consistent) is then calculated by imposing the constraint of
mass conservation.
WINDS is an evolution of the AIOLOS code (Lalas, 1985), the main differences being the insertion of appropriate
algorithms that take into account the effects of the terrain roughness and those due to the Coriolis force on the variation
of wind direction with the height.
The input of the WINDS code consists of:

wind initialisation data for the domain and stability conditions of the lower atmospheric layers;

topography data of the domain and land cover data, parameterised through the roughness length.
The volume of the 3D simulation domain is discretized with a traditional Cartesian coordinates grid (with constant
spacing) for the horizontal directions, and with conformal coordinates along the vertical axis. As a result, the volume is
described by terrain following surfaces, close to the topographic surface, by flat surfaces at the top of the computational
volume. The use of terrain following surfaces gives a better description of wind fields close to the terrain, and allows a
simplification of the boundary conditions for the equations, close to the ground.
The model uses the Zilitinkevich formulas (Zilitinkevich, 1989) of the vertical wind profiles (giving the dependence of
velocity components versus height above ground), for determining the wind speed in the whole boundary layer, as a
function of the atmospheric stability and terrain roughness. Clearly, this approximation implies the neglect of the
baroclinic character of mid-latitude disturbances.
4. THE COMPUTATIONAL DOMAINS
We have subdivided the coastal territory of Italy in 21 areas with a surface of about 200200 km2 each (Figure 1). The
domain of each area is defined on a horizontal grid having a step of about 1 km, resulting in about 40000 nodes. The
choice of these domains is dictated by the necessity of including in the simulation areas every topographic structure
having an influence on the wind speed and direction. Each area has been superimposed to the neighbouring ones for a
stripe at least 40 km wide, to limit the border effects produced in simulations and to avoid excessive discontinuities on
the borders of geographic domains.

Owemes 2006, 20-22 April. Citavecchia, Italy

46

La titude [deg]

44

42

40

38

36

10

12

14

16

18

Longitude [deg]

Figure 1: The 21 computational domains considered in the present study.

4.1 The maps of topography

In order to construct the needed Digital Terrain model (DTM), we used ground elevation data produced by U.S.
Geological Survey, which is referenced respect to the WGS84 geographic coordinates system
(http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/gtopo30/gtopo30.html). The U.S.G.S. digital elevation model covers the world surface with a
resolution of 30 both in longitude and latitude. This means one node every y~927 m along each meridian, while the
linear distance, x, of two contiguous nodes on the same parallel depends on the latitude. Indeed, x=y only along the
equator. At the extremes of Italy, about 36.1 and 47.5 in latitude, the corresponding values of x range from ~749 m
to ~694 m, respectively.
Under these conditions, a single cell can be approximated by a rectangle with the upper side of the box about 0.01%
smaller than the lower one. However, we used the original grid step of 30 along meridians and a grid step of 45 along
parallels, in order to realize a grid with almost square cells.
4.2 The maps of land cover and roughness length
We have built the roughness length maps starting from the land cover maps of the Global Land Cover
Characterization database produced by the U. S. Geological Survey (http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/glcc/glcc.html). The land
cover information is obtained by an Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), operating with a spatial
resolution of 1 km. The global land cover is an ensemble of raster maps each pixel representing an area of about one
square kilometre.
The U.S.G.S. database employs the Goode Homolosine projection of the Earths surface (Steinwand, 1994), an areaequivalent projection built in by composing sinusoidal and Mollweide projections. In order to have the same coordinate
system both for topography and land cover, we projected the land cover map onto geographical coordinates. USGS land
cover mapping adopts 24 different types of land cover. We have joined together those land cover types which have
similar influence on the land roughness, thus obtaining 10 roughness classes, following the classification proposed by
Wieringa (1993). The correspondence between the land cover types and the resulting roughness land map is shown in
Table 1.
Finally, it is well-known that the value of roughness length over the sea depends on the mean wave height and,
therefore, on the wind stress (Charnock, 1955). Actually, the roughness of the sea is a function of wind intensity and
direction, through the definition of the corresponding fetch, and of the characteristics of the basin like its batimetry.
This dependence, however, has not been taken into account, as the explicit consideration of the roughness length
variability is beyond the detail of the present research.

Owemes 2006, 20-22 April. Citavecchia, Italy

Table 1: Roughness length classes corresponding to the U.S.G.S. land cover database.
USGS land cover type
Snow or ice
Water bodies
Bare ground, Tundra, Irrigated cropland and pastures
Herbaceous wetland, Herbaceous tundra, Grassland
Cropland-grassland mosaic
Dryland, Cropland and Pasture
Mixed dryland-irrigated cropland and pasture
Scrubland
Mixed scrubland-grassland
Barren or sparsely vegetated
Cropland-woodland mosaic
Savanna
Wooded wetland
Wooded tundra
Mixed tundra
Deciduous broadleaf forest
Deciduous needle leaf forest
Evergreen broadleaf forest
Deciduous needle leaf forest
Urban and built up land

Wieringa roughness classification Roughness length (m)

Smooth snowed land
0.0005
Water, sand, mobile snow
0.001
Rough ice field, uncultivated land
0.005
Short grass and moss
0.01
Long grass, low cultivation
0.06
High cultivation
0.2
Scrubland

0.4

High mature crops

0.5

High forest

0.8

Urban and built up land

1.0

5. THE STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE WIND ALOFT

We employed the geopotential heights and the wind data coming from the re-analyses of the global Numerical
Weather Prediction (NWP) model of the European Centre for medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF;
http://www.ecmwf.int/research/era). to perform the statistical analysis of wind speeds and directions at 5000 m a.s.l. in
order to obtain the climate of the wind aloft.
These raw data correspond to the same period of the IWA, ranging from the 1st January 1990 until the 31st December
1999, with a time step of 6 hours over the whole period. Data are relative to a 3D grid having a horizontal grid step of
2.5 degrees both in latitude and longitude. Wind data are given on the 500 and 700 hPa surfaces, corresponding to
geopotential heights of about 5500 and 3000 m (a.s.l.), respectively.
In this study we chose to initialise the WINDS code (see Section 3) with velocity values of the wind aloft. This
particular application option of the code needs the choice of a reference height as the top of the simulation domain and
the choice of the speed and direction of wind blowing at that height.
Thus for each grid node of the ECMWF dataset, we linearly interpolated the wind speed and directions at 500 and
700 hPa to obtain the wind speed and direction at 5000 m a.s.l. The final frequency table for each NWP node is
subdivided in J=16 sectors of wind directions, each 22.5 degrees wide, and in I=60 wind speed classes, each 1 m/s
wide1.
In this way an Atlas of the wind at 5000 m a.s.l. above Italy can be obtained, calculating the average wind speed v in
each node of the grid as follows:

( )

v x, y =

i , j fi , j

(x, y ) vi , j (x, y )

(1)

where fi,,j(x,y) is the frequency of the wind speed vi,,j characterizing the i-th speed class (i=1,I) and the j-th direction
sector (j=1,J), in the node (x,y). Remember that I=60, while J=16.

Note that some of the 16x60=960 classes are indeed empty.

Owemes 2006, 20-22 April. Citavecchia, Italy

5.1 Wind initialisation data and their frequency

The frequencies obtained for each node of the ECMWF, as explained in the previous section, have been further
elaborated to be usable in association with the code. Indeed the elaboration discussed above produce a number, M, of
frequency tables for each simulation domain, depending on the number of nodes of the NWP falling inside the
considered area (M varies between 2 and 4). Instead, WINDS needs to assume a unique value of the wind aloft over
each simulation domain. Therefore we have built a single frequency table, fi,,j, for each domain, averaging the
frequencies, fi,,j(x,y), of the M frequency tables. Applying this method, the information about possible climatic
differences inside a single domain are lost, reducing the spatial variability of the climatological wind aloft.
6. THE 3D WIND FLOW SIMULATIONS
Given the climatological character of the present work and being our interest focused on strong winds, we limited our
attention to the case of neutral stability of the low atmospheric levels, since the explicit consideration of stable and
unstable conditions would have required not available (or scarcely available) information and much longer computing
times.
We have seen that the frequency table for each NWP node is subdivided into 16x60=960 classes, being J=16 the sectors
of wind directions and I=60 the wind speed classes, each 1 m/s wide. In order to reduce the number of the simulated
wind speed to a much lower value, we used the Lalas method (Ratto et al., 1994) to build wind maps for wind speeds
aloft different than the simulated ones. This method is based on the hypothesis that the minimization process of the
wind field operated by a mass-consistent code to elaborate the final field is such that, given a direction of the wind aloft,
wind speed at a certain height is rigorously proportional to the speed of the wind aloft. Actually, this rule is not strictly
valid for every wind speed range, especially for low wind intensities. For this reason we have made the simulations at
different speed values, and we have applied the Lalas method within the intervals 0 V 5 , 5 < V 20 and V > 20 m/s.
Therefore we are left with the combination of J=16 directions (the central direction respect to the sectors we have
adopted for the statistical analysis of wind aloft data) and of K=3 values of wind speed.
We have calculated the frequencies, Fk,,j (k=1,K; j=1,J), of the 48 (K=3; J=16) wind aloft velocities in every
simulation domain for every direction j by the corresponding values of fi,,j (i=1,I; j=1,J), through the relation:
Fk , j =

i fi , j vi , j

(2)

Vk , j

where 1 i 5 if k = 1 , 5 < i 20 if k = 2 and i > 20 if k = 3 .

Finally, we have calculated the average wind speed V in each node of the 3D grid as follows:
V ( x, y , z ) =

k, j

Fk , jVk , j (x, y , z )

(3)

In this way we have produced the 3D average wind fields, from which the 2D wind maps at fixed heights above ground
level (after interpolation among the closer conformal surfaces) can be extracted. The maps corresponding to the same
height above ground level are interpolated through a linear algorithm in order to avoid the discontinuities at the edges of
the simulation domains, thus obtaining a unique map all over the Italian coastal territory.
6.1. The maps of mean cubic wind speed and annual energy production
A similar relation, Fk*, j =

f i , j vi3, j

Vk3, j

, has to be applied if one is interested in assuring the equality between the modeled

and the measured mean cubic wind speed aloft.

Therefore, it is possible to calculate the mean cubic,
follows:

V ( x, y , z ) = 3

k, j

V , wind speed in each node of the three-dimensional grid as

Fk*, jVk3, j ( x, y, z )

(4)

The theoretical power density distribution characteristic of a specific site can be calculated multiplying the third power
of the wind speed by the corresponding local non-directional frequency distribution. However, the value of the usable
power is lower than the theoretical one by a factor ~0.59 (Betz law). Clearly, the power output of a real turbine is even
lower.
Once V and V are known, it is straightforward to deduce the values of the two parameters in the well known Weibull
distribution (Weibull, 1951), the scale parameter A and the shape parameter k (Burlando et al., 2002b):

W (v ) = kA k v k 1e ( v / A )

(5)

Owemes 2006, 20-22 April. Citavecchia, Italy

The knowledge of W(v) is important to calculate the annual average energy production of a commercial wind turbine
(Burlando et al., 2002c), characterized by its own power curve, p(v), representing the turbine power output as a function
of the wind speed. The annual energy production for a real turbine is expressed as in the following:

E = T W (v ) p (v ) d v

(6)

where T is the time length of one year, and W(v) is the non-directional probability distribution of the wind speed.
The specific producibility H for a real turbine is given by the ratio H=E/Pnom, where Pnom is the nominal power of the
turbine, and gives information about the number of hours in a year of equivalent working at the nominal power.
7. CORRECTION OF THE WIND MAPS
Following the same methodology adopted for the realisation of the IWA (Atlante Eolico dellItalia, 2002; Burlando et
al., 2002b), the wind map provided by the WINDS code has been processed in order to make it more realistic after
comparison between the map values and the measured average wind speeds at a number of wind stations throughout the
Italian territory.
The correction method is based on the determination of a correction factor f which depends on the horizontal
coordinates only:
V * ( x, y , z ) = f ( x, y ) V ( x, y , z )
(7)
where V is the wind speed value in the wind map given by WINDS.
The wind stations belong to the ENEL/CESI past and present network, to the Italian Air Force meteorological network,
to Regional networks and other (e.g. offshore oil platforms). In particular, we used the measurements at about 150
anemometric stations throughout the Italian coasts selected from the ensemble of 240 stations already used for the IWA,
in order to constitute a subset suitable for comparison in coastal areas.
The primary source of information to build up the correction factor are the local ratios of the annual average wind
speeds in correspondence to the anemometric stations calculated from measurements, Vm ( ~
x , ~y ) (where ~
x, ~
y are the

V (~
x, ~
y ) . Then, the correction
factor f ( x, y ) is generated by means of suitable interpolation or extrapolation algorithms, taking care that f is
coordinates of the station), and simulated by WINDS in the same position,

smooth enough so that the physical coherence of the wind velocity field (mass conservation) is preserved and vertical
profiles of the wind speed predicted by WINDS are retained everywhere.
A careful analysis of the spatial dependence of the so obtained correction factor reveals in some areas a variability
which could be defective because of the low spatial representativeness of Vm values. For this reason we decided to
perform a further smoothing of f ( x, y ) after the comparison of the WINDS map with the Wind and Waves Atlas of
the Mediterranean Sea (The Medatlas Group, 2004), in order to reduce the spurious gradients possibly caused by local

f ', starting from the local

ratios of the WW-Medatlas annual average wind speeds, Vmed ( ~
x, ~
y ) , over V * ( x, y ) , where ( x , y ) correspond to

effects contaminating the measurements. In particular, we defined a new correction factor,

the grid points of the atlas. Then, we tuned the smoothing in order to let
of

f f ', so that the original spatial structure

f is retained.

8. RESULTS
As final results, maps of the mean annual wind speed above sea at different elevations have been obtained.
8.1. Maps at 10 m a.s.l.
Figure 2 shows the annual mean values of wind speed at 10 m a.s.l. all along the Italian coasts of the Mediterranean Sea.
The highest wind speeds, between 6.5 and 7.5 m/s, appear in the south-western parts of Sardinia (Sardinia Sea) and
Sicily coasts (Sicily Strait). The absolute minimum (between 3.5 and 4.0 m/s) appears at the corner facing the border
between Italy and Slovenia (Northern Adriatic). Other secondary minima can be found near the coastal areas of Liguria
(between 3.5 and 5.0 m/s), Lazio (between 5.0 and 5.5 m/s), and Marche (between 5.0 and 5.5 m/s).

Owemes 2006, 20-22 April. Citavecchia, Italy

Figure 2: The distribution of annual mean wind speeds at 10 m (a.s.l.) along the Italian coasts. Values are in m/s.
Isotachs are at 0.5 m/s intervals.

The map of annual mean wind speed at 10 m a.s.l. (Figure 2) can be compared, if looking at a narrow, e.g. 20-25 km
band surrounding the Italian coasts with the ones by the WW-Medatlas and by Lavagnini et al. (2006) (Cavaleri and
Ratto, 2006). The result is reported in Table 2. The classification of sea basins is that of Meteomar
(http://www.eurometeo.com/english/meteomar).
As we can see from the table, the wind speeds as evaluated by IOWA are always higher (of about 0.5 m/s) than the
corresponding values of Medatlas, except for the Ligurian Sea and the Northern Adriatic Sea, as well as than the
corresponding values of Lavagnini et al., except for the Northern Adriatic Sea.

Table 2: Comparison among the 10 m a.s.l. wind speeds (m/s) within a band, about 20-25 km large, surrounding the
Italian coasts, as evaluated by the Wind and Waves Atlas of the Mediterranean Sea (The medatlas Group, 2004), the
Offshore Wind Climatology over the Mediterranean Basin (Lavagnini et al., 2006) and the Italian Offshore Wind Atlas
(IOWA). After Cavaleri and Ratto (2006).
Sea
Ligurian
Northern Tyrrhenian
Sardinia
Central Tyrrhenian - W side
Central Tyrrhenian - E side
Southern Tyrrhenian - W side
Southern Tyrrhenian - E side
Sardinia Channel
Sicily Strait
Southern Ionian
Northern Ionian
Southern Adriatic
Central Adriatic
Northern Adriatic

Medatlas
4.5-5.5
4.5-5.0
4.5-5.5
4.5-5.5
4.5-5.0
4.5-5.5
4.5-5.5
5.0-6.0
4.5-6.0
4.5-5.0
4.5-6.0
4.5-6.0
4.5-5.0
4.5-5.0

Lavagnini et al.
3.5-4.5
3.5-4.5
4.5-5.5
4.5-5.0
3.5-5.5
5.0-6.0
4.5-5.5
5.0-6.0
4.5-5.5
4.5-5.5
4.0-5.5
4.0-5.5
4.0-5.0
3.5-4.5

IOWA
3.5-5.0
4.5-5.5
5.5-7.0
5.0-6.5
5.0-6.0
5.0-6.5
5.0-7.0
5.0-7.0
5.0-7.0
4.5-6.0
4.5-6.0
5.0-6.0
4.0-6.0
4.0-4.5

Owemes 2006, 20-22 April. Citavecchia, Italy

Maps in Figure 3 refer to the scale parameter, A, (left) and the shape parameter, k, (right) of the Weibull distribution at
10 m a.s.l. The distribution of A resembles that of the annual mean wind speed, to which A is proportional. In particular,
the highest values (between 7.0 and 8.0 m/s) appear in the south-western parts of Sardinia (Sardinia Sea) and Sicily
coasts (Sicily Strait). The lowest values can be found in the Northern and Central Adriatic seas (between 4.0 and
5.0 m/s) and in the Ligurian Sea (between 4.5 and 6.0 m/s). As far as the shape parameter, k, is concerned, the absolute
minimum still appears in the Ligurian Sea (about 1.32 along the western coast). The highest values can be found in the
eastern coast of Sardinia (up to 1.48) and along Sicily coasts (between 1.44 and 1.46). High values (about 1.44) also
appear in the Ionian Sea and in the Central and Southern Adriatic seas.

Figure 3: Scale parameter, A, [m/s] (left) and shape parameter, k, (right) along the Italian coasts at 10 m a.s.l.

The maps of Weibull parameters presented in Figure 3 have been compared with the ones obtained by Lavagnini et al.
(2006) in Table 3. The comparison shows that also the scale A parameter as evaluated by IOWA is always higher (of
about 0.5 to 1.5 m/s) than the one by Lavagnini et al., as it is obvious since A is proportional to the mean wind speed.
On the contrary, the shape parameter k by IOWA is significantly lower than that by Lavagnini et al. (2006): remember
that a lower value of k indicates that the Weibull distribution as evaluated by IOWA is less peaked around the mean
value. In particular, the position of the peak in respect to the mean value of the distribution shifts towards lower values
as k1. If the mean value is assumed constant, the energy production (see Equation (6)) decreases as the asymmetry of
the Weibull function increases.

Owemes 2006, 20-22 April. Citavecchia, Italy

Table 3: Comparison among the Weibull parameters A (m/s) and k at 10 m within a band, about 20-25 km large,
surrounding the Italian coasts, as evaluated by the Offshore Wind Climatology over the Mediterranean Basin
(Lavagnini et al., 2006), and the Italian Offshore Wind Atlas (IOWA). The k parameter by Lavagnini et al. is contoured
at 0.2 intervals, while that by IOWA is contoured at 0.02 intervals.
Sea
Ligurian
Northern Tyrrhenian
Sardinia
Central Tyrrhenian - W side
Central Tyrrhenian - E side
Southern Tyrrhenian - W side
Southern Tyrrhenian - E side
Sardinia Channel
Sicily Strait
Southern Ionian
Northern Ionian
Southern Adriatic
Central Adriatic
Northern Adriatic

Scale parameter A
Lavagnini et al
IOWA
4.0-5.5
4.5-6.0
4.0-5.0
5.5-6.0
5.0-6.0
6.5-7.5
5.0-5.5
5.5-6.5
4.5-5.5
5.5-6.5
5.5-6.5
6.0-7.5
4.5-6.0
6.0-7.0
6.0-6.5
6.5-7.5
5.5-6.0
6.5-7.5
5.5-6.0
5.5-6.5
5.0-6.5
5.5-6.5
5.0-5.5
6.0-6.5
4.5-5.5
4.5-6.5
4.0-4.5
4.0-5.0

Shape parameter k
Lavagnini et al
IOWA
1.8-2.0
1.32-1.40
1.8-2.0
1.38-1.40
1.6-1.8
1.40-1.44
1.6-1.8
1.42-1.46
1.8-2.2
1.38-1.42
1.6-1.8
1.42-1.48
1.8-2.2
1.38-1.46
1.6-1.8
1.42-1.44
1.8-2.0
1.42-1.44
1.8-2.0
1.42-1.46
1.8-2.0
1.36-1.44
1.6-2.0
1.36-1.44
1.6-2.0
1.42-1.44
1.8-2.2
1.38-1.42

8.2 Maps at 60 and 85 m a.s.l.

Figure 4 show the annual mean values of wind speed (left) and cubic wind speed (right) at the heights of 60 (above) and
85 m (below) a.s.l., chosen in order to coincide with the hub heights of most commercial offshore turbines (see, for
instance, the website http://www.offshorewindenergy.org/). Once again the highest values appear in the south-western
parts of Sardinia (Sardinia Sea) and Sicily coasts (Sicily Strait), while the lowest values can be found in the Northern
Adriatic Sea and in the Ligurian Sea. The mean cubic wind speed is higher than the mean wind speed of about 1 m/s.
This pattern is coherent with the results of The European Wind Atlas (Troen and Petersen, 1989). In this map, the
Italian territory is divided in 3 areas, one relative to all Northern Italy and the western side of Central Italy (with annual
mean values of wind speed < 4.5 m/s at 50 m a.g.l), one relative to the eastern part of Italy (the heel of the boot to
which Italy resembles) plus the extreme western part of Sicily and the south-western part of Sardinia (5.5-6.5 m/s at
50 m a.g.l.), while the intermediate area (4.5-5.5 m/s at 50 m a.g.l.) is relative to the remaining parts of Italy.
In particular, the IOWA map at 60 m a.s.l. shows mean wind speed values higher than those (at 50 m) of Troen and
Pettersen (1989) of about 1.5 to 2.0 m/s.

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Owemes 2006, 20-22 April. Citavecchia, Italy

Figure 4: The distribution of annual mean wind speed (left) and mean cubic wind speed (right) at 60 m (above) and
85 m (below) above sea level along the Italian coasts. Values are in m/s. Isotachs are at 1 m/s intervals.

In Figure 5 maps of annual mean energy production (left) and specific producibility (right) at 60 m (above) and 85 m
(below) are presented. In particular we have considered a typical 1.5 MW turbine with hub height of 60 m and a typical
2.3 MW turbine with hub height of 85 m. As it is clear, their distribution resembles that of the wind speed, with
maximum values (up to 6500 MWh at 60 m and up to 10000 MWh at 85 m, corresponding to about 4000 hours of
equivalent working time of the turbine at its nominal power) in the south-western parts of Sardinia and Sicily coasts.
9. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we have described the realization of the Italian Offshore Wind Atlas (IOWA). Three-dimensional wind
flows have been simulated all along the Italian coast of the Mediterranean Sea using the mass-consistent model WINDS.
The simulations use wind aloft data as top boundary conditions. These data are relative to ten years of re-analyses of
the global NWP of the ECMWF. The 3D simulations have been performed under neutral stability conditions, and taking
into account the effects that the earth rotation, the surface roughness and the topography induce on the atmospheric
wind flows. The final maps have an horizontal resolution of about 1 km. Note that this methodology does not take into
account local climatological effects that are not related to the wind aloft (e.g. land and see breezes).
The mean annual wind fields have been corrected using the measurements at about 150 anemometric stations
throughout the Italian coasts. The correction method is based on the determination of a correction factor f which is
supposed to be smooth enough so that the physical coherence of the wind velocity fields (mass conservation) is
preserved, as well as the shape of the vertical profile of the wind speed predicted by the model. A further smoothing of
the correction factor has been performed after the comparison of the WINDS map with the Wind and Waves Atlas of
the Mediterranean Sea, in order to eliminate some physically unconsistent strong local gradients.

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Owemes 2006, 20-22 April. Citavecchia, Italy

Figure 5: Annual energy production (left) and specific producibility (right) for a typical 1.5 MW turbine (hub height of
60 m, above) and for a typical 2.3 MW turbine (hub height of 85 m, below).

As a final result, two-dimensional maps of annual mean wind speed at fixed heights above sea level are obtained. These
maps permit to have a direct and complete comparison among all Italian coasts, in order to determine in which areas the
wind resource is more abundant. It is important to stress that some caution is needed in interpreting the results here
presented, due to the low number of offshore wind observations considered for the determination of the correction
factor. However, a detailed anemological study is always necessary for turbine siting, since the climatological
information provided by a wind atlas cannot be so fine.
The map of 10 m a.s.l. annual mean wind speed has been compared within a distance of about 20-25 km far from the
coast, with the ones evaluated by the Wind and Waves Atlas of the Mediterranean Sea (The Medatlas Group, 2004) and
by the Offshore Wind Climatology over the Mediterranean Basin (Lavagnini et al., 2006). The results by IOWA are
always higher (of about 1.0 m/s) than those by Lavagnini et al. (2006) and higher (of about 0.5 m/s) than those of the
Medatlas Group except for the Ligurian Sea and the Northern Adriatic Sea.
Furthermore, we have shown the possibility of obtaining more information about wind resources, like mean cubic wind
speed, Weibull parameters, or annual energy production relative to commercial turbines.
The maps of Weibull parameters have been compared with the ones by Lavagnini et al. (2006). The comparison shows
that the A parameter as evaluated by IOWA is always higher (of 0.5 to 1.5 m/s) than the one by Lavagnini et al., while
the shape parameter k is significantly lower.

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Owemes 2006, 20-22 April. Citavecchia, Italy

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
National Consortium of Universities for Physics of Atmospheres and Hydrospheres (CINFAI) is gratefully
acknowledged to support the activities of the Physics of the Atmosphere and the Ocean Group - Department of Physics
- University of Genoa (Italy). We warmly thank Dr. Gabriele Botta from CESIRICERCA, with whom we had valuable
and constructive exchanges of ideas and results. We are grateful to Eng. Luigi Cavaleri (ISMAR-CNR, Venice, Italy)
for his constant collaboration, in particular for providing us with the results of the Medatlas Project. Dr. Alfredo
Lavagnini has provided us with the text of the paper by Lavagnini et al. (2006) prior to publication. We also would like
to thank Prof. Antonio Speranza (University of Camerino, Italy - CINFAI) for his helpful comments and suggestions.

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