in offshore areas along the east
coast of the United States. In this study, a method for analyzing the
potential contribution of wind energy to stable power in the
Andalusian region of southern Spain is proposed and evaluated.
The method is based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to
obtain spatiotemporal variability patterns of wind energy in the
region. Based on analysis of these patterns, the best wind farm
locations to reduce wind power fluctuations through their interconnection
are then assessed, to optimally reduce the wind power
fluctuations. Data for the analysis consist of 3-km spatial resolution
gridded wind energy time series across the Andalusian region,
including offshore areas, derived from mesoscale Numerical
Weather Prediction (NWP) model simulations. Finally, the firm
capacity provided by different combinations of offshore and
onshore wind farms is estimated. Although relatively small, the
study region is characterized by varied topographic, geographic and
weather conditions. This fact anticipates the existence of considerable
wind speed spatial variability and, ultimately, spatial
balancing of wind energy resources. This paper is organized as
follows: Section 2 deals with the study area, data and method.
Section 3 describes the results. Finally, in Section 4, a summary and
conclusions are presented.