Abstract
Wind energy is one of the abundant, cheap and fast-growing renewable energy sources whose intensive extraction potential is still in immature stage in India. This study aims at the determination and evaluation of wind energy potential of three cities located at different elevations in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. The historical records of wind speed, direction, temperature and pressure were collected for three South Indian cities, namely Chennai, Erode and Coimbatore over a period of 38 years (1980-2017). The mean wind power density was observed to be highest at Chennai (129 W/m2) and lowest at Erode (76 W/m2) and the corresponding mean energy content was highest for Chennai (1129 kWh/m2/year) and lowest at Erode (666 kWh/m2/year). Considering the events of high energy-carrying winds at Chennai, Erode and Coimbatore, maximum wind power density were estimated to be 185 W/m2, 190 W/m2 and 234 W/m2, respectively. The annual average net energy yield and annual average net capacity factor were selected as the representative parameters for expressing strategic wind energy potential at geographically distinct locations having significant variation in wind speed distribution. Based on the analysis, Chennai is found to be the most suitable site for wind energy production followed by Coimbatore and Erode.
Highlights
India has witnessed tremendous challenges in managing the ever-increasing energy demands from various sectors despite being blessed with plentiful availability of large number of alternate energy resources
It is certain that irrespective of rampant irregularities existing in global renewable energy market, overall installed capacity for wind power has rapidly increased over 104% during the last decade which is a clear indicative of an increasing role of wind power in fulfilling the future energy demands (GWEC, 2018)
The higher values of mean wind speed, wind power density and mean energy content at Chennai may be due to its being the coastal site which is open to sea on the eastern side and is relatively flat land
Summary
India has witnessed tremendous challenges in managing the ever-increasing energy demands from various sectors despite being blessed with plentiful availability of large number of alternate energy resources. The challenges are primarily accounted from population exploration, environmental degradation, energy pricing, energy security and various socioeconomic crises. As a wake-up call for the nation, recently government has initiated various policies and programmes strongly in support of renewable energy aiming at significantly reducing its carbon emissions. Depletion of conventional energy sources and associated environmental sustainability issues has put up new strategies for researchers and policy makers to explore and discover renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, biogas, biofuels, etc. It is certain that irrespective of rampant irregularities existing in global renewable energy market, overall installed capacity for wind power has rapidly increased over 104% during the last decade which is a clear indicative of an increasing role of wind power in fulfilling the future energy demands (GWEC, 2018). China and USA upgraded their installed capacity within one year (2015–2016) by 23.328 GW and 8.203 GW, respectively, the global wind power installed capacity shown a remarkable rise by 12.5% during the same period
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