{
  "slug": "solar-wind-cooling",
  "title": "Wind: The Free Coolant That Refunds Part of the Heat Penalty",
  "url": "https://solaranalytica.com/solar-wind-cooling",
  "summary": "Wind hands back part of the heat penalty by scrubbing heat off the glass. Across 40 markets mean wind runs from a dead-still 1.8 m/s in Bogota to 6.3 in Cape Town, and because it barely tracks temperature (r = -0.09), it decides which hot markets get relief. Worth 3.6% to 6.9% of output versus still air, and the humid tropics, hot and windless at once, get none.",
  "license": "Free to use with attribution to Solar Analytica (solaranalytica.com). Underlying figures are named to their public sources below.",
  "csv": "https://solaranalytica.com/reports/solar-wind-cooling/data.csv",
  "datePublished": "2026-05-28",
  "lastReviewed": "2026-05-28",
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "NASA POWER: surface meteorology (WS10M, WS2M wind climatology)",
      "url": "https://power.larc.nasa.gov/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Faiman: assessing the outdoor operating temperature of PV modules (2008)",
      "url": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pip.813"
    },
    {
      "title": "IEC 61853-2: PV module performance testing and energy rating (thermal model)",
      "url": "https://webstore.iec.ch/publication/60164"
    },
    {
      "title": "NREL: PV module operating temperature and wind effects (SAM thermal models)",
      "url": "https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/sam/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Solar Analytica: The Heat Penalty (Production Climate part 01)",
      "url": "https://solaranalytica.com/solar-heat-penalty"
    }
  ],
  "figures": [
    {
      "id": "wind-resource",
      "title": "The wind resource. Mean 10 m wind speed per market",
      "unit": "m/s",
      "caption": "The free coolant: mean 10 m wind speed per market (m/s). Windiest to calmest spans 3.5x, and it does not track temperature: r with air temperature is -0.09. NASA POWER 20-year climatology, from the Solar Analytica wind pillar.",
      "series": [
        {
          "label": "Cape Town",
          "value": 6.32
        },
        {
          "label": "Perth",
          "value": 6.29
        },
        {
          "label": "New York",
          "value": 5.31
        },
        {
          "label": "Reykjavik",
          "value": 5.25
        },
        {
          "label": "London",
          "value": 5.01
        },
        {
          "label": "Berlin",
          "value": 4.51
        },
        {
          "label": "Cairo",
          "value": 4.04
        },
        {
          "label": "Riyadh",
          "value": 3.91
        },
        {
          "label": "Jodhpur",
          "value": 3.56
        },
        {
          "label": "Jakarta",
          "value": 3.11
        },
        {
          "label": "Los Angeles",
          "value": 2.83
        },
        {
          "label": "Bogota",
          "value": 1.81
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "wind-clawback",
      "title": "What the wind is worth. Output recovered vs a still-air baseline",
      "unit": "%",
      "caption": "Wind translated into output: the modelled yield recovered against a dead-still baseline (Faiman module model at 800 W/m2, PERC coefficient). Every market gains; the spread from 3.6% to 6.9% is the part of the heat penalty that wind quietly refunds.",
      "series": [
        {
          "label": "Cape Town",
          "value": 6.9
        },
        {
          "label": "Perth",
          "value": 6.87
        },
        {
          "label": "New York",
          "value": 6.46
        },
        {
          "label": "Reykjavik",
          "value": 6.43
        },
        {
          "label": "London",
          "value": 6.29
        },
        {
          "label": "Berlin",
          "value": 6.02
        },
        {
          "label": "Cairo",
          "value": 5.71
        },
        {
          "label": "Riyadh",
          "value": 5.61
        },
        {
          "label": "Jodhpur",
          "value": 5.37
        },
        {
          "label": "Jakarta",
          "value": 5
        },
        {
          "label": "Los Angeles",
          "value": 4.76
        },
        {
          "label": "Bogota",
          "value": 3.6
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}