Academic literature on the topic 'Wind energy potential'

As the demand for safe and clean electricity increases, the New Zealand wind energy industry seems poised to expand. Many generating companies have projects in the planning stage and there are likely to be many more potential sites yet to be identified. Reliable wind climate predictions over a wide area and for different heights above grounds are often vital to determine the viability of wind farm projects. This study investigates the use of meteorological mesoscale models to determine the wind and energy resource, particularly in areas of complex terrain. Complex terrain environments are likely to be typical of where New Zealand wind energy developments will take place. Using the prognostic mesoscale meteorological model TAPM (The Air Pollution Model), regions of relatively high mean wind speed were identified for a number of regions, including Banks Peninsula and parts of Canterbury and Otago. The simulations were conducted for a one-year period (2001) and at different heights above ground level. Depending on the resolution of the model calculations, speed-up effects from the forcing of some topographic features were accounted for by this model. Where the modelling was considered reliable, hourly wind data were obtained from grid points within the inner grid and used as input data for the industry-standard wind energy assessment model WAsP (The Wind Atlas Analysis and Application Program). As WAsP is able to account for detailed topography and surface roughness features, wind and energy predictions at a specific site or over a wider area surrounding the site were made. Limitations of both models in complex terrain were identified. These limitations were due to a number of factors, including the grid spacing used for mesoscale model calculations, the complexity of the terrain, and difficulties in modelling some regional scale airflow regimes. Being aware of when and where model limitations are likely to occur is important in being able to overcome and account for them.

This study analyses the potential of onshore wind power on the African continent. Appropriate socio-economic and geographical constraints as well as current technology’s efficiencies are applied in order to reach the desired result. The current energy access in Africa is described to illustrate the need of promoting the wind power penetration on the continent. The existing as well as the under construction wind farms are mapped. Thereafter, the methodology of approaching the resource assessment is analyzed. For the energy generation assessment, not only wind speed strength but also its probability of occurrence over a certain period of time is important and thus considered in this study. High resolution wind speed data from Vortex and lower resolution daily wind speed data are combined and processed in order to obtain a fine wind speed distribution and thus wind energy production generated by selected wind turbine models. The different categories of wind power potential are defined and evaluated. Additionally, screening criteria regarding the localization of wind farms are outlined and implemented through GIS analysis. Subsequently interactive maps are prepared. ArcGIS software is used in order to capture, store and manipulate the required data and to obtain a holistic view of the study. The study is conducted at a continental level using a 1km×1km (longitude, latitude) land-use grid as the finest resolution. Ultimately the results of this work are presented and compared with similar approaches and significant conclusions are drawn. Based on the analysis there are some countries that signify high yearly wind energy yield, such as South Africa, Sudan, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Mauritania, Tunisia and Morocco, whilst Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Central African Republic, Burundi, Liberia, Benin and Togo indicate the least wind power potential. Also important future work is suggested.<br>Denna studie analyserar potentialen för landbaserad vindkraft på den afrikanska kontinenten. Lämpliga socioekonomiska och geografiska begränsningar samt aktuella vindkraftverkens effektkurvor tillämpas för att nå det önskade resultatet. Den nuvarande tillgången till energi i Afrika beskrivs för att illustrera behovet av att främja vinkraftens penetration på kontinenten. De befintliga vindkraftverken såväl som de under konstruktion kartläggs. Därefter analyseras metoden för att närma sig resurs bedömningen. Bedömningen av energiproduktion och vindhastighet samt dess sannolikhet att inträffa under en viss tid är både viktigt och nödvändigt för denna studie. De olika kategorierna av potential för vindkraftverk definieras och utvärderas. Dessutom beskrivs kriterier av lokalisering för vindkraftverk och genomförs genom GIS-analys. Därefter förbereds interaktiva kartor. ArcGIS software används för att fånga, lagra och manipulera data som krävs samt för att få en helhetssyn av studien. Studien genomförs vid en kontinental nivå genom att använda en 1 km x 1 km (longitud, latitud) rutnät för markanvändning med den finaste upplösningen. Slutligen presenteras resultaten av detta arbete och jämförs med liknande metoder, viktiga slutsatser dras samt viktigt framtida arbete föreslås.

As the demand for alternative and renewable sources of energy grows worldwide, it has been argued that small-scale Urban Wind Energy (UWE) could have the potential to provide a significant portion of the electricity demand for urban areas. However there is currently a lack of knowledge surrounding the realisable potential for UWE, especially in the South African context. In order to gain a better understanding of the potential for UWE and the barriers acting against its widespread uptake, it is essential to first quantify the resource potential. This study appraise and evaluate the UWE resource potential at six locations in Cape Town, South Africa in order to gain a solid understanding of the UWE resource potential and thus begin to build the knowledge base around UWE. In order to meet the research objectives, wind data was obtained from the South African Weather Service for six locations in Cape Town at five minute recording intervals for a period of two years. These locations were: The Royal Cape Yacht Club located in the Table Bay harbour, the Astronomical Observatory located in Observatory, and the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens located in Kirstenbosch, the Molteno reservoir located in Oranjezicht, the Automatic Weather station located near the Cape Town International Airport as well as the Cape Town Weather Office (WO) station which is also located at the Cape Town International Airport. The data sets are then analysed using a script written in the programming language R in order to quantify the wind energy resource potential of the chosen locations. The wind energy resource potential of each site was combined with four commercially available wind turbines power curves in order to calculate the expected annual energy production values of the various turbines at the each of the locations. Results from this study highlight the significant variability resource potential of the wind regime that occurs between the six locations. The lowest yearly average wind speed was 2.044m/s which was recorded at the Kirstenbosch recording station, while the highest average wind speed was 5.06m/s which was recorded at the WO station. The average of all six stations for the two year period was 3.24m/s. Therefore the WO station had the highest energy potential with a value of 1474 kWh/m²/year and the station with the lowest energy potential was the Kirstenbosch station with a value of 80 kWh/m²/year. Combining these resource potential values with power cures from four commercially available wind turbines yields the Annual Energy Production (AEP) values for the chosen site and wind turbine. These AEP values also varied drastically with the high of 4304 kWh/year being calculated for the SkyStream turbine at the WO station and a low of just 0.66 kWh/year being calculated at the Kirstenbosch station with the Turby turbine. This variability hampers the wide spread uptake of small scale wind power as the results from one area cannot be reliably used to infer the wind resource potential at another nearby site. Out of the six chosen locations in the Cape Town area, three of the locations (Royal Cape Yacht Club, the Automatic Weather Station (AWS), and the Cape Town Weather Office (WO)) showed potential for the installation of a small scale wind turbine, with the Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs) performing better than the Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs). This is possibly due to the lower cut in wind speeds of the HAWTs compared to the cut in wind speeds for the VAWTs. The conclusions of this study show that the UWE resource potential in Cape Town is characterised by high resource variability between the various locations. Three of the six locations that were evaluated showed potential for UWE installations. This study has identified the major challenges associated with UWE to be the turbulence, lower hub heights of the wind turbines (this study used 20m as the standard hub height), and variability of the wind regime between locations.

This study examines the potential effects of Brexit on the wind power industry within the UK. It became apparent that in order to reach the objective that the approach of the research needed to be broadened as it was found that Brexit has potential effects in many areas of the UK's electricity industry, including the import and export of electricity and the associated fuels used in the generation of electricity. It was found that in the event of a hard Brexit, one with no deal, that the UK's physical connections by undersea cables with the EU may be disrupted. There is a raft of legislation within the Internal Energy Market (IEM) governing this issue that will need a complete rewrite should the UK be forced to leave the IEM. Consideration was given to the effect of Brexit on the three main traditional methods used to generate electricity in the UK, coal, gas and nuclear power and how wind powered energy could be used to fill any shortfall directly or indirectly caused by Brexit. The UK Government has pledged to eradicate the use of coal in generating electricity by 2025 so the study considered only the short term effect of this. For gas, the UK is a net importer, albeit mainly from outside the EU, so the implications of Brexit on gas fired generation of electricity were discussed and found to be negligible. For nuclear powered electricity generation the implications were found to be more serious. The UK would have to resign its membership of Euratom, the European Atomic Agency Community. The potential implications of this include, limited access to nuclear fuel, and reduced participation into nuclear research carried out by the EU. The scope of Euratom also includes a large variety of areas including the safeguarding of nuclear materials in storage and in transit along with radiation protection. Plans by two Japanese companies to build new nuclear power stations in the UK have been shelved with Brexit adding to the uncertainty of their viability. It was found that the combined implications of the above could result in a shortfall in the medium term provision of electricity within the UK. Finally it was discussed whether or not wind powered energy could fill this void and it was found that the UK Government could overcome the deficiency by encouraging investment in wind power by increasing the value of their Contract for Difference, CfD,  auctions.

Wind farms are costly projects and prior to the construction, comprehensive wind resource assessment processes are carried out in order to predict the future energy yield with a reliable accuracy. These estimations are made to constitute a basis for the financial assessment of the project. However, predicting the future always accommodates some uncertainties and sometimes these assessments might overestimate the production. Many different factors might account for a discrepancy between the pre-construction wind resource assessment and the operational production data. This thesis investigates an underperforming wind farm in order to ascertain the reasons of a discrepancy case. To investigate the case, the relevant data and information along with the actual production data of three years are shared with the author. Prior to the construction, a wind resource assessment was carried out by an independent wind consultancy company and the work overestimated the annual energy production (AEP) by 19.1% based on the average production value of available three years. An extensive literature review is performed to identify the possible contributing causes of the discrepancy. The data provided is investigated and a new wind resource assessment is carried out. The underestimation of the wind farm losses are studied extensively as a potential reason of the underperformance. For the AEP estimations, WAsP in WindPro interface and WindSim are employed. The use of WindSim led to about 2-2.5% less AEP estimations compared to the results of WAsP. In order to evaluate the influence of long term correlations on the AEP estimations, the climatology datasets are created using the two different reanalysis datasets (MERRA and CFSR-E) as long term references. WindSim results based on the climatology data obtained using the MERRA and CFSR-E datasets as long term references overestimated the results by 10.9% and 8.2% respectively.

As many other countries, Sri Lanka strives to become 100% renewable by 2050 through reducing their dependence on fossil fuels and implementing more renewable sources such as solar and wind power. A solution to the problem is therefore to install solar and wind hybrid systems. The country's geographic location near the equator makes the solar radiation high and can therefore be used to achieve the energy goal by 2050, both in an economical and environmental way. This study is therefore investigating Sri Lanka's potential to implement a solar and wind hybrid system. The aim of this study is to examine whether it is economically and environmentally profitable to construct a solar and wind power hybrid system in a household in Sri Lanka. The goal is to find the most economical optimal dimension of a solar and wind hybrid system that is also environmentally sustainable. By compiling a literature study about the solar and wind hybrid system, an optimization could be made in the optimization programme HOMER. Data was collected for solar and wind power costs and Sri Lanka’s daily consumption of energy. Then HOMER produced the most optimal dimension of a solar and wind hybrid system. The economical methods that were used were the net present value, the payback method and the internal rate of return, which all were solved in HOMER to reach the optimal dimension. The result showed an optimal dimension consisting of 5 kW PV and 1 kW wind power, which resulted in a profitable investment with a payback of 4 years and 10 months, and a NPV of 27,000 USD and also an internal rate of 20.6%. In addition, the renewable fraction was 48.5% for a household. Beyond the economical results a sensitivity analysis was made, which did not change the result for the optimal dimension. The conclusion can be drawn that the optimal dimension of the hybrid system is economically profitable and will befriend Sri Lanka’s goal of 100% renewable energy by 2050. However, even if the result showed a profitable investment, the investment costs are high, which means that only a few would afford the investment of a solar and wind hybrid system.<br>Precis som många andra länder strävar Sri Lanka efter att enbart förlita sig på förnybar energi till år 2050 genom att ersätta den fossila produktionen med förnybara källor som sol- och vindkraft. En lösning på problemet är därför att installera hybridsystem bestående av sol- och vindkraft. Landets geografiska placering nära ekvatorn gör att solinstrålningen är hög, vilket medför att solceller skulle kunna vara en viktig komponent om Sri Lanka ska uppnå energimålen till 2050 på både ett ekonomiskt och miljövänligt sätt. Denna studie undersöker därför Sri Lankas potential att implementera ett hybridsystem bestående av sol- och vindkraft. Syftet med studien är att undersöka om det är ekonomiskt och miljömässigt lönsamt att konstruera ett sol- och vind- hybridsystem i ett hushåll i Sri Lanka. Målet är att hitta den optimala dimensioneringen för hybridsystemet som gynnas mest ekonomiskt och är miljömässigt hållbar. Genom att sammanställa en litteraturstudie om hybridsystem bestående av sol- och vindkraft kunde en optimering genomföras i syfte att erhålla det bäst dimensionerade hybridsystemet i optimeringsprogrammet HOMER. Data samlades in om kostnader för sol- och vindkraft samt om Sri Lankas dagliga konsumtion av energi i ett genomsnittligt hushåll som HOMER använde för att framställa den optimala dimensioneringen av ett sol- och vind- hybridsystem. De ekonomiska metoderna som användes för att beräkna den ekonomiska lönsamheten var nuvärdesmetoden, återbetalningsmetoden och internräntemetoden, vilka beräknades i HOMER för att komma fram till den optimala dimensioneringen. Resultatet visade att den optimala dimensioneringen utgörs av 5 kW solceller och 1 kW vindkraftverk som utgör en positiv lönsam investering med en återbetalning på 4 år och 10 månader samt ett nuvärde på 27 000 USD och en internränta på 20,6 %. Resultatet visade också en förnybar användning på 48,5 % för ett hushåll. Utöver de ekonomiska modellerna gjordes också en känslighetsanalys som indikerade på att förändring av de undersökta parametrarna inte hade tillräckligt stor inverkan på resultatet för att förändra den optimala dimensioneringen. Slutsatsen kan dras att den optimala dimensioneringen är ekonomiskt lönsam och kommer att gynna Sri Lanka mot målet att ha 100 % förnybar energi till 2050. Men även om resultatet visar på lönsam investering är investeringskostnaderna höga, vilket medför att endast ett fåtal skulle kunna ha råd att investera i hybridsystem bestående av sol- och vindkraft.

The electricity sector is a major source of carbon dioxide emission that contributes to the global climate change. Over the past decade wind energy has steadily emerged as a potential source for low carbon energy source which are grown through time. As wind power generation increases around the world, there is increasing interest in adding intermittent power to the electricity grid and to design an off-grid wind energy system. The goal of the current thesis is to investigate techno-economically viable wind energy system that supplies electricity and Heat for a given residential community in Ethiopia. To ease the optimization process, HOMER software is used to identify the potential wind area and optimize cost effective wind energy system.

Marine renewable energy developments (MREDs) are becoming an increasing feature of the marine environment. Scotland has considerable potential for generating energy from the marine environment in the form of extensive wind, wave and tidal-stream resources. Scotland also hosts numerous internationally important breeding populations of seabirds and Scottish territorial waters represent a key overwintering area for many species. EU legislation requires that MREDs do not damage the integrity of protected seabird populations but potential effects of MREDs on seabirds are not yet fully understood. This thesis aims to address gaps in knowledge regarding how MREDs may affect seabird populations. I generate vulnerability and confidence indices to predict the effects of offshore wind, wave and tidal-stream renewable energy developments on Scottish seabird populations; track the movements of a seabird species identified as lacking in data to better understand overlap with MREDs; and investigate seabird use of a high current flow environment leased as a tidal-stream energy development site. Overall, this thesis indicates that seabird responses to MREDs are likely to be species-specific and will vary dependent on the development location and design of the energy generating technology. My findings indicate that effects of MREDs will differ dependent on individual foraging strategies, age and life stage of individuals, which implies that MREDs are likely to differently affect subsections of seabird populations.

<p><strong>AIM</strong>: As global warming is a fact and the consumption of energy is continuously increasing, alternative sourcing of energy is a must. The use of oil and coal for heating is limited due to it is nature resource which is also limited. Everyone will be forced to evaluate their own usage of energy and look into the alternatives of how to be a part of solving this global issue. For many, alternatives such as sun panels and wind power stations could be an alternative power source.</p><p> </p><p>Today, there is only a limited availability in Sweden of small sized wind power stations and only small local producers or importers that sell the equipment – mostly through internet based market communications.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Method</strong>: The theoretical approach to this thesis is based on the MIO model in combination with several other models and tools such as, PESTEL, Marketing Mix, SWOT, Porter’s five forces, EVC and STP.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Result & Conclusions</strong>: There is a market for small wind power stations between 5 – 50 kW in Sweden.</p><p>The biggest reason why the market segment exist and will increase is due to continuously increasing energy prices and that wind power stations of this size are permitted to be connected directly to household consumption.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Suggestions for future research</strong>: How are other energy complements like solar panels influenced? What governmental decisions affect the business of small wind power stations?</p><p> </p><p><strong>Contributions to the thesis</strong>: Success in this segment requires a different approach to product offering than what the current competition is doing.</p>

This work proposes a methodology to evaluate the performance of operating wind farms via the use of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA) and modeled data. The potential annual energy is calculated per individual turbine considering underperforming/loss events to have their power output in accordance with a representative derived operational power curve. Losses/underperformance events are calculated and categorized into several groups aiming at identifying and quantify their causes. The methodology requires both anemometry data from SCADA system as well as modeled data. The discrepancy of the data representing the valid points of the power curve is taken into consideration as well when assessing the performance, i.e. wind speed vs power output of events that are not loss/underperformance. Production loss and relative standard deviation of power output of what is defined as “valid sample” in this work (per each turbine) are the main results obtained in this work. Finally, a number of optimization measures are suggested in order to enhance the performance, which can lead to a boost in the financial output of a wind farm. Aiming at judging the reliability of the proposed methodology, a case study is conducted and evaluated. The investigated case study shows that the methodology is capable of determining potential energy and associated losses/underperformance events. Several questions were raised during the assessment and are discussed in this report, recommendation for optimization measures are presented at the end of the study. Also, a discussion on the limitations and uncertainties associated to the presented methodology and the case study.