Wind Energy Potential Assessment of Great Cumbrae Island Using Weibull Distribution Function
Emmanuel Yeri Kombe *
Department of Systems Power and Energy, School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Scotland and Department of Energy Technology, School of Engineering and Technology, Kenyatta University, Kenya.
Joseph Muguthu
Department of Energy Technology, School of Engineering and Technology, Kenyatta University, Kenya.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Wind energy is among the fastest growing energy generation technology which is highly preferred alternative to conventional sources of energy. The major Scottish Government target is to deliver 30% of her energy demand by 2020 from renewable sources of energy as well as meeting the emission targets as set under the Scotland Climate Change Act 2009. In this paper, wind energy potential assessment of Great Cumbrae Island was investigated. For this, a ten year mean monthly wind speed at height 50 m obtained from the National Aeronautic Space Administration (NASA) were analysed using the Weibull probability distributions to assess the wind energy potential of Great Cumbrae Island as a clean, sustainable energy resource. Results from the wind-speed model showed that Great Cumbrae Island as high wind-speed site with a mean wind speed of 7.598 m/s and having power density . The annual energy captured by four selected horizontal wind turbine models was determined. The result shows that GE 2.0 platform can capture 4.5 GWh energy in a year which is an acceptable quantity for wind energy.
Keywords: Wind potential, wind power density, weibull distribution, power generation.