Abstract
Pakistan needs to overcome the cost of power generation and the ever-increasing demand for energy with environment-friendly renewable energy resources. Several research efforts have been made with the support of Pakistan Meteorological Department in the last two decades for wind resource assessment (WRA) across the country. However, the practical installation of wind farms is quite a fraction of the total forecast wind energy potential. In this feasibility, WRA of Umerkot and Sujawal districts located in Sindh provinces of Pakistan has been analyzed by analyzing mean wind speeds, estimated Weibull parameters, power and energy densities calculation for various heights of selected wind turbines. Further, this paper analyzes the overall energy potential for these locations with implementation cost and pay-back period for investment. These locations are selected by the World Bank initiative of wind profiling campaigns to record wind speed data during 2016 and 2018 with 10 min resolution. It is observed that Umerkot and Sujawal sites are suitable for energy production. The highest values of power and energy densities for Sujawal are 414.18 W/m2 and 3628.22 kWh/m2/Yr and for Umerkot these values are 303.86 W/m2 and 2661.81 kWh/m2/Yr. The results indicate that using Nordex N90/2500 wind turbines are highly beneficial for Umerkot and Sujawal. The associated costs of energy are 0.074 $/kWh and 0.056 $kWh respectively and the payback period is estimated to be around 7 years with 20 years life time of the project. This work suggests the possibility of wind farm installation and commissioning based on power density calculation and cost of land acquisition. This work emphasizes the investment for wind farms at Sujawal and Umerkot for the sustainable growth of the country. This helps out policymakers for long term planning, development of wind energy projects and attracting investment for the country.
Highlights
Global sustainable development is heavily dependent on annual energy production (AEP) which is expected to reach three times its current value by 2050 (Kalogirou, 2004) for the rapid economic growth of countries like China and India (Kaygusuz, 2012; Black et al, 2015)
Adopting suitable wind turbine (WT) technologies can compensate these variations of wind speeds and provide tight voltage, frequency, and power regulation before it is fed to utility grid using step-up transformers and power electronics-based AC-DC and DC-AC converters
The results show that the average annual wind speed, power density, and energy production are in the range between 0.61 and 3.98 m/s, 1.74 − 88.55 W/m2, and 15.27 − 775.72 kWh/m2, respectively at a height of 10 m above the ground
Summary
Global sustainable development is heavily dependent on annual energy production (AEP) which is expected to reach three times its current value by 2050 (Kalogirou, 2004) for the rapid economic growth of countries like China and India (Kaygusuz, 2012; Black et al, 2015). The per capita energy consumption is influenced by the demographic conditions of any region and escalates by time. The gap in annual energy yield consumes millions of barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) and contributing to the greenhouse effect and global warming. This situation is severe in developing and third world countries for Nomenclature.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
