Estimation of wind potential in Sardinia, quantitative computation and actual constraints analysis.

Wind energy is one of the renewable sources that can help to reduce the greenhouse emissions in Italy, in order to achieve the environmental goals defined at national and global levels. A widespread diffusion of wind turbines in the territory significantly affects several aspects of human lifestyle, as for instance the landscape and the noise level. To estimate how the wind resource can be exploited in today and future energetic mix, both at national and regional level, in this thesis an assessment of the electricity productivity of wind turbines is performed. The selected region of the study is Sardinia, the second biggest island in Italy. Different wind potentials are computed, more precisely the technical, the feasible, and the regulatory potential, which are based on the definition and application of several exclusion criteria. Moreover, a technical analysis of the actual electric infrastructure of the Region is conducted, and also an economic evaluation of each potential. The main result shows that all potentials have consistent annual production and “efficiency” (i.e., capacity factor), so the wind resource in the region can be exploited to sustain the renewable development in Italy according to the national targets.