Estimation of the wind energy potential for coastal locations in India using the Weibull model

Wind energy has exhibited the fastest growth of all renewable energy sources. Available wind energy potential for use by wind turbines has been found to be highly overestimated by existing methodologies when the wind energy potential is assessed from the total wind speed data because the wind turbine operates between cut-in and cut-out wind speeds. While applying existing methodologies, wind power density is overestimated on average by nearly 25% compared to the actual wind power available to a wind turbine. Hence, for estimating wind energy potential, availability factors and wind energy between cut-in and rated wind speeds should be properly estimated using Weibull models. The appropriateness of different methods of estimating Weibull parameters are site specific. In this article, a novel method has been developed for estimating the actual wind power available to the wind turbine. The parent two-parameter Weibull model can be used to determine the availability factor, whereas when determining the available wind energy between the cut-in and rated wind speeds, wind speed data should be refitted in the range defined by the cut-in and rated wind speeds using a three-parameter Weibull model, where the location parameter can be equated to the cut-in wind speed.