The increasing interest in renewable energy, particularly in wind, has given rise to the necessity of accurate models for the generation of good synthetic wind speed data. Markov chains are often used with this purpose but better models are needed to reproduce the statistical properties of wind speed data. We downloaded a database, freely available from the web, in which are included wind speed data taken from L.S.I. -Lastem station (Italy) and sampled every 10 minutes. With the aim of reproducing the statistical properties of this data we propose the use of three semi-Markov models. We generate synthetic time series for wind speed by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The time lagged autocorrelation is then used to compare statistical properties of the proposed models with those of real data and also with a synthetic time series generated though a simple Markov chain.Comment: accepted for publication on Physica

The production of energy through wind turbines is increasing enormously in the latest years. To better design wind turbines, a good model for wind speed is needed. In a previous paper, we showed that semi-Markov processes are more appropriate for this purpose than simple Markov processes, but to reach an accurate reproduction of real data features, high order models should be used. In this work, we introduce an indexed semi-Markov process that is able to reproduce the most important statistical features of wind speed data, namely, the probability density function and the autocorrelation function, without the necessity of higher order models. We downloaded a database, freely available from the Web, of wind speed data taken from Lastem station, Italy and sampled every 10min. We then generate synthetic time series for wind speed by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The time lagged autocorrelation is then used to compare statistical properties of the proposed model with those of real data and also with a synthetic time series generated though a simple semi-Markov process. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

In this paper we consider the problem of wind energy production by using a second order semi-Markov chain in state and duration as a model of wind speed. The model used in this paper is based on our previous work where we have showed the ability of second order semi-Markov process in reproducing statistical features of wind speed. Here we briefly present the mathematical model and describe the data and technical characteristics of a commercial wind turbine (Aircon HAWT-10kW). We show how, by using our model, it is possible to compute some of the main dependability measures such as reliability, availability and maintainability functions. We compare, by means of Monte Carlo simulations, the results of the model with real energy production obtained from data available in the Lastem station (Italy) and sampled every 10 minutes. The computation of the dependability measures is a crucial point in the planning and development of a wind farm. Through our model, we show how the values of this quantity can be obtained both analytically and computationally.

The prediction of wind speed is one of the most important aspects when dealing with renewable energy. In this paper we show a new nonparametric model, based on semi-Markov chains, to predict wind speed. Particularly we use an indexed semi-Markov model, that reproduces accurately the statistical behavior of wind speed, to forecast wind speed one step ahead for different time scales and for very long time horizon maintaining the goodness of prediction. In order to check the main features of the model we show, as indicator of goodness, the root mean square error between real data and predicted ones and we compare our forecasting results with those of a persistence model.

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