The suitability of statistical distribution in fitting wind speed data

Abstract

Wind energy has been used for navigation and agriculture. Recently, wind energy is given a lot of attention because of the focus on renewable energy. Wind energy growth in Asia is currently on the rise. Both India and China are leading with more installed capacity and manufacturing facilities. In Malaysia, wind energy conversion is also given a serious consideration. The potential for wind energy generation in Malaysia depends on the availability of the wind resource that varies with specific location. This paper deals with how to model or how to fit several probability distribution models to Malaysia wind speed data available. As usually described in the literature concerning efforts to develop an adequate statistical model for wind speed, there are a few statistical models discussed such as Weibull Distribution and Rayleigh Distribution. In the literature, it is a common procedure to compare these functions to determine which one fits the measured distribution best. The result from a simple descriptive statistics shows that Weibull distribution might be the probability distribution that can fit the data well.