Wind Energy Potential Investigation And Evaluation Of Turbine Performance For Specific Locations. Case study: Debrebrehan, Enewari and Mehalmeda

Abstract

In the present situation, the demand for energy was ever-growing, worries over restricted fossilfuel resources and limited ecological regulations have made renewable energies very attractable. Among all renewable energy sources, wind energy has played important roles in addressing clean, affordable, harmless, and competent energy in sustainable enlargement. The leading issues were that most all these papers mainly concerned the assessment of wind energy potential, site suitability analysis, choice and performance evaluation of existing wind turbines with the optimum interaction of wind regime. The primary task of this study, wind characteristic, and wind energy potential were analyzed using the wind speed data collected from the national meteorology agency using the two Weibull parameters such as, the shape parameter k (dimensionless) and the scale parameter c (m/s). The annual mean wind speed and power densities are 7.38 m/s and 267.5 W/m2 for Debrebrehan, 9.12m/s and 419.6 W/m2 for Enewari, 8.03m/s and 317.25W/m2 for Mehalmeda at 70-meter height. The results indicate that Enewari has a better potential for using wind energy than the other two areas. In order to assess the most suitable area for wind farm placement, ArcGIS software was applied. Among twelve sets of alternatives, two wind turbines with generating capacities 2000 kW for Enewari and Mehalmeda wind sites and 1500 kW for Debrebrehan wind site are chosen and examined, and the annual energy output and annual capacity factor of the selected wind turbines are calculated for each study area, which are 4314.2MWh and 37.8%, 7285.2MWh and 44.8%,6243.2MWh and 39.6% respectively. The most significant component of wind energy extraction is the wind turbine and its aerodynamic characteristics of the blade airfoil. Therefore, predicting wind turbine performance by using the "blade element moment" theory, the results of power coefficient for both selected wind turbine indicates that 0.47 and 0.448 respectively. and the prediction of aerodynamic characteristics of the desired airfoil by the varying angle of attack is essential, among the two airfoil types s818 can achieve the maximum lift to drag coefficient ratio at an angle of attack 5 degree. Finally, the CFD simulation was done over a two-dimensional S818 airfoil, by predicting the contour plot of velocity and pressure distribution to describe the characteristics of a particular wind turbine.