Development of a methodology for wind energy estimation and wind park design

This study presents a thorough methodology for wind park design and micro-siting. It encompasses all aspects of wind project development and prefeasibility analysis. This approach uses the long-term wind data taken from on site measurements. Collected data are analyzed statistically. Then, wind resources are estimated and a choice of the best fitted wind turbines is performed. An optimal layout for wind turbines is proposed using the Windstation and 3DEM software. The main contribution of this paper is to evaluate the amount of accuracy given by this methodology in terms of predicting the future annual energy production of wind projects. To achieve this objective, the methodology was applied to a specific site which already contains an installed wind park. The test case wind farm is located in the north-east of Tunisia. The evaluation is performed by comparing the estimated energy production with real-time operation database of the wind park. Finally, the paper discusses the prospects of wind farm upgrading in order to make better use of the local wind resource. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.