Applications of electricity generation on the western coast of the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt

Abstract

SYNOPSIS The aim of the study was to identify suitable sites for large wind turbines in the extreme northwest of Egypt along the Mediterranean Sea. A technical and economic assessment has been made of electricity generation using wind turbines located at three promising potential wind sites: Sidi Barrani, Mersa Matruh and El Dabaa. These contiguous stations along the coast have an annual mean wind speed greater than 5.0 m/s at a eight of 10 m. Weibull parameters and the power law coefficient (n) for all seasons have been estimated and used to describe the distribution and behaviour of seasonal wind speeds at these locations. The annual values of wind potential at the heights of 70–100 m above ground level were obtained by extrapolation of the 10 m data from the results of our previous paper [1] using the power-law. The three stations have a high wind power density ranging from 340–425 to 450–555 W/m2 at the heights of 70 and 100 m, respectively. In this paper, an analysis of the cost of a kWh of electricity generation from two different systems was made, one using a relatively large single wind turbine of capacity 2 MW and the other using 25 small wind turbines (80 kW) arranged in a wind farm of 2 MW total power. The yearly energy output of each system at each site was determined, and the electricity-generating costs in each case was also determined and compared with the generating costs of generating electricity using diesel oil, natural gas and photovoltaic systems furnished by the Egyptian Electricity Authority. The single wind turbine 2 MW was found to be more effective than the wind farm. For all three envisaged stations the electricity production cost was found to be less than E 0.02/kWh which is about half the specific cost of the wind farm.