Analysis of the Wind Turbine Selection for the Given Wind Conditions

Abstract

The aim of the current paper is to present an approach to a wind turbine selection based on an annual wind measurements. The proposed approach led to a choice of an optimal device for the given wind conditions. The research was conducted for two potential wind farm locations, situated on the north of Poland. The wind measurements pointed out a suitability of the considered localizations for a wind farm development. Six types of wind turbines were investigated in each localization. The power of the wind turbines were in the range of 2.0 to 2.5 MW and with a medium size of the rotor being in the range of 82 to 100 m. The purpose of the research was to indicate a wind turbine with the lowest sensitivity to the variation of wind speed and simultaneously being most effective energetically. The Weibull density distribution was used in the analyses for three values of a shape coefficients k. The energy efficiency of the considered turbines were also assessed. In terms of the hourly distribution of the particular wind speeds, the most effective wind turbines were those with a nominal power of 2 MW, whereas the least effective were those with the nominal power of 2.3–2.5 MW. The novelty of the proposed approach is to analyze the productivity for many types of wind turbines in order to select the one which is the most effective energy producer. The analyses conducted in the paper allowed to indicate a wind turbine which generates the highest amount of energy independently on the wind speed variation.