An Image Processing-Based Method to Assess the Monthly Energetic Complementarity of Solar and Wind Energy in Colombia

Rafael Peña Gallardo, Adalberto Ospino Castro and Aurelio Medina Ríos
Additional contact information
Rafael Peña Gallardo: Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí 78290, Mexico
Adalberto Ospino Castro: Departamento de Energía, Universidad de la Costa, Barranquilla 080002, Colombia
Aurelio Medina Ríos: Facultad de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Morelia 58030, Mexico

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-17

Abstract: Solar and wind energy systems, without storage, cannot satisfy variable load demands, but their combined use can help to solve the problem of the balance between generation and consumption. Energetic complementarity studies are useful to evaluate the viability of the use of two or more renewable energy sources with high variability in a specific interval of time in a determined region. In this paper, the monthly energetic complementarity study of solar and wind resources of Colombia is carried out. A novel approach to conduct the study is proposed. A dataset with the average monthly solar radiation and wind speed values is obtained from high-resolution images of renewable resources maps, using image processing algorithms. Then, the dataset is used to calculate the energetic complementarity of the sources employing the negative of the Pearson correlation coefficient. The obtained values are transformed to energetic complementarity maps, previously eliminating the protected areas. The obtained results show that there is a good energetic complementarity in the north and northeastern regions of the country throughout the year. The results indicate that projects related to the joint use of solar and wind generation systems could be developed in these regions.

Keywords: energetic complementarity; image processing algorithms; resource maps; solar energy; wind energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/5/1033/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/5/1033/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:5:p:1033-:d:325077

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().