Offshore Wind Resource Assessment in Rhode Island Waters

Abstract

The validity and accuracy of the Weibull distribution to represent wind speed distributions and estimate the wind power resource is assessed for Southern New England coastal waters. Excellent agreement is found between Weibull-derived and measured mean power resource estimates, confirming the validity of the two-parameter Weibull distribution in the study area. The mean power resource and its spatial variability are assessed and mapped in terms of theoretical and technical power estimates. Finally, a sensitivity study is performed to assess the impact on power estimates at hub height of a hypothetical wind turbine, of uncertainties of three main controlling factors: (1) mean wind speed, (2) Weibull shape parameter, and (3) shear coefficient of the lower atmospheric boundary layer. Results are presented in terms of expected mean theoretical and technical power, and confidence interval, at a hypothetical 110 meters hub height, on a high resolution grid (10 arc-seconds) based on stochastic estimations.