A review of sensitivity analysis practices in wind resource assessment

A review of sensitivity analysis in wind resource assessment is presented, offering classifications by sensitivity analysis output variable (or model), method, application, country, and software. No review of sensitivity analysis in wind resource assessment is currently available in the literature. The review pool consists of 102 articles with models dealing with statistical and economic aspects of wind resource assessment (goodness-of-fit metrics, wind power, wind energy, the net present value, the payback period, the internal rate of return, the payback period, the levelized cost of energy, capital and operational expenses). Sensitivity analysis studies, where the wind is predicted with weather research and forecasting models, sensitivity analysis of hybrid energy systems with a wind component, and sensitivity analysis of wind turbine fatigue loads, are beyond the scope of this review. This review reveals the lack of collective agreement on the definition of sensitivity analysis in the literature, the dominance of nonlinear models (100%), and the prevalence of one-at-a-time sensitivity analysis method (82%). The review highlights the existing gaps in the field, provides evidence of the common pitfalls, possibly leading to costly misinterpretations of the data at the site and hence to erroneous feasibility assessments. The review urges to rethink how to conduct sensitivity analysis in wind resource assessment. It also includes comparison of one-ata-time sensitivity analysis and global sensitivity analysis for a linear and nonlinear models.