Wind Resource Assessment and Economic Viability of Conventional and Unconventional Small Wind Turbines: A Case Study of Maryland

Abstract

Annual mean wind speed distribution models for power generation based on regional wind resource maps are limited by spatial and temporal resolutions. These models, in general, do not consider the impact of local terrain and atmospheric circulations. In this study, long-term five-year wind data at three sites on the North, East, and West of the Baltimore metropolitan area, Maryland, USA are statistically analyzed. The Weibull probability density function was defined based on the observatory data. Despite seasonal and spatial variability in the wind resource, the annual mean wind speed for all sites is around 3 m/s, suggesting the region is not suitable for large-scale power generation. However, it does display a wind power capacity that might allow for non-grid connected small-scale wind turbine applications. Technical and economic performance evaluations of more than 150 conventional small-scale wind turbines showed that an annual capacity factor and electricity production of 11% and 1990 kWh, respectively, are achievable. It results in a payback period of 13 years. Government incentives can improve the economic feasibility and attractiveness of investments in small wind turbines. To reduce the payback period lower than 10 years, modern/unconventional wind harvesting technologies are found to be an appealing option in this region. Key contributions of this work are (1) highlighting the need for studying the urban physics rather than just the regional wind resource maps for wind development projects in the build-environment, (2) illustrating the implementation of this approach in a real case study of Maryland, and (3) utilizing techno-economic data to determine suitable wind harnessing solutions for the studied sites.

A Novel Automatic Method for the Urban Canyon Parametrization Needed by Turbulence Numerical Simulations for Wind Energy Potential Assessment

“…As reported in the Introduction, the demand for distributed renewable energy production from wind sources can also be met with the help of small-scale turbines installed over high buildings, and VAWTs are the best choice for wind energy exploitation in urban environment [1][2][3][4][5]. For wind energy potential assessment, numerical and laboratory simulations of urban boundary layer turbulence require a detailed description of geometric characteristics of the urban canopy in form of UCPs [16,17]. In this Section, the results obtained following the above-described unsupervised procedure for the determination of urban canyon geometrical parameters UCPs are summarized.…”

“…For wind energy potential assessment in urban areas, quantitative knowledge about UCPs and, more specifically, ARc values for a canyon area is required [16,17], even to conduct in-canyon motion analyses and conceptualization, as described below. Figure 7 shows that the distribution of ARc values has a similar trend for all cities, with an increase and a peak followed by a decrease.…”

“…Pdf (ordinates) of LAR (abscissa) for each of the case studies; the red line highlights the average value, the magenta line the median value, the green line the best-fit Weibull distribution; on the legend, in red the average value, in magenta the median value, in green the most probable value of the best-fit distribution and in cyan the most probable value of the data. For wind energy potential assessment in urban areas, quantitative knowledge about UCPs and, more specifically, ARc values for a canyon area is required [16,17], even to conduct in-canyon motion analyses and conceptualization, as described below. Figure 7 shows that the distribution of ARc values has a similar trend for all cities, with an increase and a peak followed by a decrease.…”

“…Therefore, the demand for distributed production is met with the help of smallscale turbines installed over high buildings (see, e.g., [11][12][13][14][15]). Recent results show the significant potential of the small-scale wind power generation [12,[15][16][17]. Moreover, the implementation of distributed generator (smart-) grids over the urban area would have important advantages, such as low transmission losses and natural integration with the energy communities.…”

The Hydro, Wind and Solar Hybrid Power Generation and Balancing Energy Supply-Demand for Seyemtribua Rural Village in Northern Ethiopia

“…Wind turbine cost varies based on the technology used and tower height. Costs of civil work and installation of wind turbines also vary based on site condition and turbine size [58]. The wind turbine selected in this study for the system was 250kW.…”