Risk Assessment of a Wind Farm /

Abstract

Given the current power outages in Pakistan, renewable energy is a basic national need and for this purpose determining potentials of alternative energies is important, one of them is wind energy. Wind power has several advantages. It is renewable, clean, has low operational and maintenance cost, less environmental impact, high capacity factor and a high energy return on investment. Wind speed is the most crucial factor in wind power production but because of its intermittent nature power supply is not continuous. The best practice is to predict wind speed and forecast wind power production with minimum mean absolute percentage error. Studies have shown that accuracy of wind power forecasting is not accurate enough and different models have been applied to get best results. In this study, Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average models‘ Box and Jenkins methodology and Neural Networks Back Propagation method have been applied for the wind power estimation for the coastal areas of Baluchistan. Four -year monthly mean wind speed data (2009-2012) provided by Pakistan Meteorological Department have been used and based on these data, monthly mean wind speed has been predicted for the next four years (2013-2016) using two approaches, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average models and Neural Networks Back propagation method using MATLAB. Basing the study on the obtained wind speed forecasts, this study aims to determine the technical feasibility of a wind farm along the coastal line of Baluchistan, Pakistan. Key objective is to estimate wind power potential at low, medium and higher heights and suggest a hub height and turbine most suited to the conditions. 317 turbines of up to 5MW of different manufacturers were examined at different heights (60m, 80m, 100m, and 120m). Optimum height and model of turbine has been determined according to the wind speed at different locations to obtain maximum possible capacity factor. Furthermore, a financial study has also been carried out considering the average wind speed, optimized hub height and rating of wind turbine determined from technical analysis and country‘s tariff rates. This part of the study determines the pros and cons of investing in a wind farm at different locations in Pakistan. Finally a unique storage technique using molten salts has been discussed and modelled using MATLAB SIMULINK.