Analysis of wind energy conversion system using Weibull distribution

In this study, the wind speed data has been statistically analyzed using Weibull distribution to find out wind energy conversion characteristics of Hatiya Island in Bangladesh. Two important parameters like Weibull shape factor "k" and Weibull scale factor "c" have been calculated by four methods. The probability density function f(x), cumulative distribution function or Weibull function F(x) have been used to describe the best wind distribution between observed and theoretically calculated data. There are six statistical tools used to analyze the goodness of curve fittings and precisely rank the methods. For a selected month the Weibull shape factor was found to be very close to the Raleigh function k=2 indicating the characteristics of wind wave are regular and uniform. For the other period 'k' varies between 1.99 to 3.31 and 'c' between 2.83 to 7.25 m/sec. The study found that more than 58% of the total hours in a year have wind speed above 6.0 m/s in Hatiya, therefore this site has enough available power to drive a small wind turbine for electricity generation. The proposed methodology can be used in any windy site to easily identify the potentiality of wind power. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.