Analysis of wind power potentials at selected airport locations in Canada

摘要

Wind power has huge potential as a source of sustainable/renewable energy. In this paper, we analysed wind speed data from 21 major Canadian airports over 1971-2000 to determine the top four locations (i.e. having long-term annual average wind speed greater than 4.83 m s~(-1) at a height of 10 m) for further analysis. We employed Weibull probability density function to fit with the actual probability density (i.e. relative frequency distribution) of the hourly wind speed data for the year 2005. The parameters of Weibull probability function were found location-specific and then used to predict the probability density from 2006 to 2008, and found strong relations (i.e. r~2-values in the range 0.83-0.94) existed with the measured probability density. On the one hand, our simulation also indicated that location of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador could produce the highest amount of total annual power (i.e. 883,993 kWh), and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, on the other hand, could produce the least amount (i.e. 344,508 kWh in total, annually).