A study conducted by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and incorporated in the BTM World Market Update Report for 2012, outlined the benefits and opportunities associated with cold climate wind energy production.
Areas with cold climates and icy conditions have enormous, yet not fully explored, potential, providing the possibility to boost wind energy production with up to 72% by 2017, according to the research scientists involved in the study.
Tomas Wallenius of the VTT adds that the market for cold climate wind energy is much larger than the widely discussed offshore wind power.
Cold climate areas include Scandinavia, Canada, parts of Central Europe, the U.S and China, where winter winds and cold air density provide perfect conditions for high production capacity. The only limitation is icing, which could cause losses unless anti-icing systems are introduced.
There is a high demand for developing and switching to renewable energy sources. Hence the team of scientists at VTT is now developing a specialized anti-icing technology, which should provide what is needed in order to make their predictions possible.
