Wind Resource and Wind Power Generation Assessment for Education in Engineering

Abstract

This paper proposes a practical approach to assess wind energy resource and calculate annual energy production for use on university courses in engineering. To this end, two practical exercises were designed in the open-source software GNU Octave (compatible with MATLAB) using both synthetic and field data. The script used to generate the synthetic data as well as those created to develop the practical exercises are included for the benefit of other educational bodies. With the first exercise the students learn how to characterize the wind resource at the wind turbine hub height and adjust it to the Weibull distribution. Two examples are included in this exercise: one with an appropriate fit and another where the Weibull distribution does not fit properly to the generated data. Furthermore, in this exercise, field data (gathered with a LiDAR remote sensing device) is also used to calculate shear exponents for a proper characterisation of the wind profile. The second exercise consists of the calculation of the annual energy production of a wind power plant, where the students can assess the influence of different factors (wind speed, rotor diameter, rated power, etc.) in the project. The exercises proposed can easily be implemented through either in-class or online teaching modes.