Integrated Assessment and Technological Framework for High-Altitude Wind Energy

High-altitude wind energy offers a vast and comparatively stable renewable resource, yet its development in China lacks systematic assessment that integrates generation system characteristics. This study establishes a multi-scale evaluation framework for China’s 1000 m altitude wind resources by coupling 45 years of ERA5 (ECMWF Reanalysis v5) data for 1980–2024, four nested WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) simulations at 27, 9, 3 and 1 km for 2000–2024, and a standardized airborne wind energy power curve. The framework proceeds from reanalysis-based coarse screening, through WRF-based refinement, to a site-specific assessment, and it quantifies the effective wind speed, the wind power density and the annual equivalent full-load hours on a common basis. The results reveal pronounced regional and altitude-dependent distribution patterns. Core resource-rich zones, including the northern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, central-eastern Inner Mongolia, and northeastern coastal areas, exhibit annual equivalent full-load hours exceeding 3000 h, with specific regions surpassing 4000 h, and 7.33% of mainland China exceeds the 4000 h screening threshold while 32.96% exceeds 3000 h. A two-stage siting procedure, combining reanalysis-based coarse screening with meteorological-model refinement, identifies 19 candidate grid cells in Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Tibet and Northeast China and ranks them by resource quality. Detailed assessment of a representative coastal site in Jilin Province validates the framework’s reliability, and it reproduces the observed wind speed, temperature and relative humidity at 1000 m above ground level, characterizing the prevailing southwesterly–westerly regime, its seasonal cycle and its diurnal variability. The generation-potential values reported here are idealized, resource-based estimates rather than predictions for a specific device. This study addresses critical gaps in China’s high-altitude wind resource quantification, providing scientific foundations and technical guidance for strategic planning, engineering feasibility studies, and commercial deployment of high-altitude wind power systems.