Estimation of wind energy in Libya

Abstract

Estimation of wind characteristics is considered as the first essential step to evaluate a wind energy project based on information about all aspects of the implementation and operation of the project. It's therefore necessary to have detailed knowledge of the wind to select the suitable wind turbine for a certain zone and also to estimate its performance accurately. Various parameters need to be known of the wind, including the mean wind speed, directional data, and variations about the mean in the short term (gusts), daily, seasonal and annual variations, and variations with height. These parameters are highly site specific and can only be determined with sufficient accuracy by measurements at a particular site over a sufficiently long period. This paper studies the wind energy and wind assessment in some selected sites such as Derna, Musrata, Zuara and Sebha. This paper first provides background information about wind power and its resource, including a review of available data, which are obtained from the representative meteorological stations. For each location, long term time series of 3-hourly measured wind data were used; the wind data has been recalculated to represent the actual wind speed at hub height. The mean wind speed, the Weibull distribution, annual energy and annual capacity factor are calculated for each site. The annual energy and annual capacity factor calculation are based on specification of wind turbine known as Ventis v-12 which has a power curve as shown in Figure 10. This study indicates that wind energy is available in some sites in Libya, and Derna has the maximum power, annual energy and capacity factor.