Overview of cold climate wind energy: Challenges, solutions, and future needs

Wind energy in cold climates offers vast wind energy potential. Cold climate, in this context, means icing conditions and/or low temperatures outside the normal operational limits of the wind turbines. Cold climate areas are often located in low population density surroundings. The combination of good wind resources and low population density makes such areas attractive for wind energy generation, but weather conditions hinder the exploitation of these resources. Many technical issues as well as health and safety related ones need to be addressed before wind energy projects can be economically feasible in cold climates. Icing of wind turbines reduces energy yield, reduces the mechanical life time of turbines, and poses safety risks in the form of ice throw, among other challenges. Progress to solve these challenges has been made in recent years, for example, anti- and de-icing systems have been developed, but still more is to be done to reduce further the cost of wind energy in cold climates.