Wind Resource Assessment for southern part of Libya: Case Study of Hun

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the wind energy resource potential at Hun. Wind data was analyzed using different statistical models and calculations were performed to forecast wind energy & power density at the site. Energy production was estimated using different wind turbines which were selected according IEC standards criteria and performance of these wind turbines. Detailed wind resource data analysis was performed for the proposed site using Excel spreadsheet for one-year period from (April 2011 to March 2012). The wind data are measured at four heights of (20 m, 40m, 60m and 61m) above ground level (a.g.l). The analysis showed that the annual average wind speed is 5.69 m/s and the power density is about 190 W/m2 at 61m height. It could be noticed that at 61m height, the highest scale parameter is 7.25 m/s in April while the lowest scale parameter is 5.71 m/s in October. The annual shape and scale parameters range from 2.27 at 61m to 2 at 20m, and from 6.42 m /s at 61m to 5 m /s at 20m, respectively. 90% of the speeds are below 11m/s, 84% are below 10m/s and 50% are above 6 m/s. The maximum speed is 21 m/s with 0.14% occurrence. The wind shear exponent was evaluated as 0.18 and the roughness length for the site as 0.17 m, which indicates that the roughness class for the location is 2.5. According to the performed analysis, the wind turbines suitable for this site should be of class III/B. Comparison of three wind turbines indicated that Vestas V112-3000 gave the highest capacity factor of 42% in April and an availability of 83% while Nordex N100-2500 gave capacity factor of 41% for the same month and availability of 83.7%.