Windindustry.com

website for the windindustry

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Wind Climatology

Knowledge of wind conditions at a wind turbine’s location is very important to turbine operators and investors for use of wind energy. Knowledge of local wind conditions is required in order to forecast the potential output of a wind farm. In general, in Germany, wind speeds decrease as they move inland from coastal areas because of increased roughness. This phenomenon occurs alongside wind speeds that increase with height. Wind speeds in low mountain range areas are considerably higher than might be expected, for example..

 

Current wind flow and wind speeds (300m above ground level) around the world

 

Complementary annual cycles of wind and solar electricity

In spite of varying wind speed distribution at various wind energy locations, monthly output from wind turbines is shown to follow a typical annual cycle. The highest wind electricity output is achieved during the winter months, when demand and consumption are highest. In contrast to wind energy photovoltaic electricity production follows a daily cycle which coincides with consumer demand (the highest demand for electricity is at midday). Wind and solar electricity production complement each other very well over the course of the year. Offshore wind farms achieve excellent results. The level of a coal power plant is reached at about 4,000 peak load hours.


Location forecasts for wind farms: average annual wind speed is not enough

Average annual wind speed is an important factor in assessing the suitability of wind farm locations. Because wind speed is calculated with the cube of wind turbine capacity, use of the average value along does not provide meaningful information on yield at the location. Locations with the same average annual wind speed values can fluctuate significantly over the course of a year in relation to annual energy yields due to differences in wind speeds. Therefore, addition information on statistical distribution of location-specific wind speeds over a year-long period is relevant in assessing wind conditions and yield at a given location.