Wind projections for the territory of Russia considering the development of wind power

The aim of the present work is to obtain surface wind speed projections which could be used as guidelines for long-term planning of wind power construction in Russia. A classical multi-model ensemble approach is implemented by using CMIP5 simulation results. The reliability of the ensemble estimation is assessed by a comparison of three different ensemble versions, which are validated against reanalysis data for the whole 20^th century and have been found to give consistent results since 1950. Agreement between the results of all the assembling approaches has been found to be quite good for the mid-twenty-first century. All ensembles being considered agree that a considerable decrease in wind resources should be expected in the European part of Russia and in the south of Western Siberia towards 2050. Another robust output of the analysis is an increase in annual wind speed in the Southern Russian Far East. The wind change during the considered 40-year period is in the range from - 6 to +6%, which means a -18 to +18% change in potential wind generation. The main output of the present work is that climate change by no means can be seen to be an obstacle to the development of renewable power in Russia. However, the climate change associated alteration of wind regime should be necessarily taken into account when establishing long-term plans for wind farm construction in Russia.