Economics of wind energy utilisation for water pumping and CO2 mitigation potential in Niger Delta, Nigeria

The wind characteristics of six locations in Niger Delta, Nigeria, and the economics of the application of wind energy for water pumping and possible avoidable CO2 emissions through wind utilisation were examined. The wind data were measured at 10 m height and analysed using the two-parameter Weibull model. Small size wind turbines were accessed with Goulds 45J03 water pump series. The average power density, average energy density and annual energy across locations ranged between 6.28 ≤ APD ≤ 102.90W/m2, 4.49 ≤ AED ≤ 82.96 kWh/m2 and 422 ≤ AE ≤ 747 kWh/m2/year, respectively. Bergey Excel-10 kW turbine had the lowest cost of energy and water pumping cost of 0.022 ≤ COE ≤ 0.151 $/kWh and 0.074 ≤ WPC ≤ 0.403 $/m3, respectively. The annual capacity of water yield varies from 21,847 to 120,206 m3/year on a total dynamic head of 50 m. Furthermore, the annual diesel saved across the locations ranged from 1605 to 8696 l/year (17.47 to 94.67 GJ/year), while the annual averaged CO2 saved was between 4.32 and 22.93 tons/year. © 2015 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.