Wind Energy - How Reliable.
Abstract
The reliability of a wind energy system depends on the size of the propeller and the size of the back-up energy storage. Design of the optimum system for a given reliability level can be performed if a time series of wind speed data is available. However, a design based on conventional meteorological records, which sample the wind speed with a ten minute averaging time at three-hourly intervals, will over-estimate the storage by a factor of approximately 2, and if the wind speed is only available on a daily basis the storage will be over-estimated by a factor of 2.5 to 4.0. This is because a propeller can respond to wind speed changes in much less than ten minutes and also because three-hourly sampling does not often pick up the brief high-speed incidents which generate a significant part of the wind energy. A nomogram is presented, based on some continuous wind speed measurements, which enables storages calculated from three-hourly or daily data to be appropriately reduced because of these two effects. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1980
- Accession Number
- ADA094988
Entities
People
- Douglas J. Sherman