Technical and economic assessment of wind power potential of Nooriabad, Pakistan

Background: Pakistan is a developing nation and heavily spends on the development of conventional power plants to meet the national energy demand. The objective of this paper is to investigate wind power potential of site using wind speed, wind direction, and other meteorological data collected over a period of 1 year. This type of detailed investigation provides information of wind characteristics of potential sites and helps in selecting suitable wind turbine. Methods: The site-specific air density, wind shear, wind power density, annual energy yield, and capacity factors have been calculated at 30 and 50 m above the ground level (AGL). The Weibull parameters have been calculated using empirical (EM), maximum likelihood (MLM), modified maximum likelihood (MMLM), energy pattern (EPFM), and graphical (GM) methods to determine the other dependent parameters. The accuracies of these methods are determined using correlation coefficient (R-2) and root mean square error (RMSE) values. At last, the wind energy economic analysis has been carried out at 30-and 50-m heights. Results: The annual mean wind speeds were found to be 5.233and 6.55 m/s at 30-and 50-m heights, respectively, with corresponding standard deviations of 2.295 and 2.176. All methods fitted very well with the measured wind speed data except GM model. The frequency of wind speed observed that Weibull distribution gave better fitting results than Rayleigh distribution at wind site. The mean wind power densities were found to be 169.4 and 416. 7 W/m(2) at 30-and 50-m heights. The economic analysis showed that at Nooriabad site in Pakistan, the wind energy can be produced at US$0.02189/kWh at a hub height of 50 m. Conclusions: The results showed that the site has potential to install utility wind turbines to generate energy at the lowest cost per kilowatt-hour at height of 50 m.