Estimation of wind energy potential using different probability density functions

作者：Chang, Tian Pau^*

来源：Applied Energy, 2011, 88(5): 1848-1856.

DOI：10.1016/j.apenergy.2010.11.010

• Wind speed
• Wind power density
• Probability density function
• Weibull function
• Mixture function
• Statistical error

In addition to the probability density pdf) derived with maximum entropy principle (MEP), several kinds of mixture probability functions have already been applied to estimate wind energy potential in scientific literature, such as the bimodal Weibull WW) and truncated Normal Weibull NW). In this paper, two other mixture functions are proposed for the first time to wind energy field, i.e. the mixture Gamma-Weibull GW) and mixture truncated normal NN). These five functions will be reviewed and compared together with conventional Weibull function. Wind speed data measured from 2006 to 2008 at three wind farms experiencing different climatic environments in Taiwan are selected as sample data to test their performance. Judgment criteria include four kinds of statistical errors, i.e. the max error in Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, root mean square error, Chi-square error and relative error of wind potential energy. The results show that all the mixture functions and the maximum entropy function describe wind characterizations better than the conventional Weibull function if wind regime presents two humps on it, irrespective of wind speed and power density. For wind speed distributions, the proposed GW pdf describes best according to the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test followed by the NW and WW pdfs, while the NN pdf performs worst. As for wind power density, the MEP and GW pdfs perform best followed by the WW and NW pdfs. The GW pdf could be a useful alternative to the conventional Weibull function in estimating wind energy potential.

• 出版日期2011-5
• 单位南开大学