Wind Power Viability on a Small Island

Abstract

Arousa, a natural reserve island facing the Atlantic Ocean, aims to reduce its dependency on conventional energy sources. This work has two main objectives: to investigate the potential of wind power and to study the implementation of a wind farm in Arousa. The resource is characterized by its narrow range of directions (SW and NE in winter and summer, respectively) and marked monthly and hourly variability. The windiest months are in summer (July and August) and winter (February and March). Regarding the hourly variability, there occur two periods of higher wind speed: the afternoon (from 1 to 5 pm) and late evening (from 8 pm to midnight). Rayleigh and Weibull distributions are fitted to the annual and monthly data series. While the Rayleigh distribution tends to overestimate slightly the resource, its Weibull counterpart provides a good fit. Overall, a substantial wind resource exists in Arousa. On these grounds, the viability and implementation of a wind farm are analyzed, taking the Vestas V82--1.65 MW turbine as a reference. Performance parameters (capacity factor, availability factor, and efficiency) are computed on annual and monthly bases. The results prove that a wind farm with six turbines is capable of fulfilling the electricity demand of the island extrapolated 25 years into the future, providing an adequate storage solution (e.g., hydrogen).