Analysis of wind characteristics and wind energy potential in complex mountainous region in southwest China

Abstract

As a very important clean energy, exploring the application of wind energy can provide a new idea for solving the problem of energy shortage in remote mountain areas. Based on ultrasonic, propeller and radar detective technology, the wind characteristics including temporal and spatial distribution characteristics in mountain areas were observed in multiple dimensions. The spatial and temporal wind charactertics in mountainous areas are different from that in flat area. Wind speed is mainly driven by thermal effects and the wind profiles is mainly S-shaped which is not conformed to the logarithmic distribution or exponential distribution. Comparing four Weibull parameters estimate methods, the maximum likelihood method is recommended. The maximum likelihood method has the best fit behavior, and has the smallest wind power density as compared to other methods. The power density increases from 39 W/m2 at 100 m a.r.g.l to 279 W/m2 at 500 m a.r.g.l. And the total cost of 1 kWh wind-generated electricity is about 0.305CNY/kWh with HAWTs and 0.406CNY/kWh with VATWs. This shows that the wind energy is more economical and feasible than conventional electricity in the mountainous areas of southwestern China. The results are also expected to provide useful reference for the application of distributed wind energy in complex mountainous region in the future.