Synchrony of Wind, Solar and Hydroelectric Resources Over Argentina and Its Climatic Drivers

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ABSTRACT Renewable energy sources present significant temporal variability, which imposes difficulties for their integration into national power grids. This integration could be facilitated by an optimised distribution of renewable capacity that exploits their complementarity. This study brings a comprehensive analysis of the complementarity of wind, solar and hydroelectric resources on the interannual scale over Argentina using 38 years of reanalysis‐based data and streamflow measurements. The impact of low‐frequency ocean–atmosphere variations on these resources is also assessed in this study. We found little potential for complementarity between solar, wind and hydro resources for the current spatial distribution of renewable capacity in Argentina. This result highlights the need to study different options for coping with the intermittency of these resources, including different spatial schemes for future capacity additions. Climatic drivers exert significant control over wind, solar and hydro resources. The Antarctic Oscillation (AAO) index shows anticorrelations with wind speeds. Streamflows over northern Patagonia show also negative relationships with the AAO, and a positive relationship with the El Niño/Southern Oscillation. Streamflows over southern Patagonia show positive relationships with Southern Blob (SB) and AAO indices driven by variations in temperature and precipitation. The solar resource shows strong links with all ocean‐rooted climate indices during winter. These results provide an insight into the potential predictability of renewable energy resources on the interannual scale.

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