Prospects of wind energy on Penghu Island, Taiwan

This study applied long-term wind speed data from Penghu and Dongjidao weather stations to simulate the wind energy production for eight onshore and one offshore wind farms at Penghu Island, Taiwan by a commercial software package, Wind Atlas Application Program (WAsP). In addition, the RET Screen software suite was also applied to analyze economic characteristics of these nine wind farms (WFs). The results show that the capacity factors (CFs) of the nine wind farms mentioned above are in the range of 44.5% to 49.1%. In addition, utilizing 1.8-MW wind turbines (WTs) for all onshore WFs was the most feasible selection among the four potential types of WTs (600, 900, 1,800 and 3,600 kW) considered. 3-MW WTs selected for the offshore WF can produce the most wind energy and the smallest wake loss among the three possible types of WTs (1, 2 and 3MW). As a consequence of implementing these WFs, the emission of about 680,977 tons carbon dioxide (tCO(2)) into the local atmosphere in Penghu Island annually could be avoided. Finally, based on the payback periods achieved, the order of implementation of the considered WFs can be identified more clearly. Longmen WF should be the first priority, and the next one should be SiyuWF and so on. Besides, this study provides much useful information for WF planning on Penghu Island.