Wind measurements and energy potential for a remote village in Saudi Arabia

Site specific wind speed measurements are critical for techno-economical development of wind energy applications. This paper presents the wind power potential at Rawdat Ben Habbas village where meteorological measurements were made using a 40 meter tall wind tower for a period of one year. The wind speeds were recorded at 20, 30 and 40 meters above ground level (AGL) and the wind direction at 30 and 40 meters AGL. The other meteorological parameters like ambient temperature, pressure, relative humidity and global solar radiation were measured at 2 meters AGL. The wind exponent was obtained using wind speed at different height and found to vary between 0.28 and 0.36 corresponding to February 2006 and December 2005, respectively. The air density varied between 1.076 kg/m³ in the month of August 2006 and 1.187 kg/m³ in January 2006. Annual mean wind speed was noted as 4.6, 5.23 and 5.57 m/s at 20, 30 and 40 meters AGL, respectively. A wind farm of 30 MWinstalled capacity assumed to be developed using 30 wind turbines of 1 MW rated capacity each could generate 88,096 MWh of electricity each year at an average plant capacity factor of 33.5% at the site of wind measurements.