Wind Energy Potential Assessment of Great Cumbrae Island Using Weibull Distribution Function
Abstract
Wind energy is among the fastest growing energy generation technology which is highly preferred
alternative to conventional sources of energy. The major Scottish Government target is to deliver
30% of her energy demand by 2020 from renewable sources of energy as well as meeting the
emission targets as set under the Scotland Climate Change Act 2009. In this paper, wind energy
potential assessment of Great Cumbrae Island was investigated. For this, a ten year mean monthly
wind speed at height 50 m obtained from the National Aeronautic Space Administration (NASA)
were analysed using the Weibull probability distributions to assess the wind energy potential of
Great Cumbrae Island as a clean, sustainable energy resource. Results from the wind-speed model
showed that Great Cumbrae Island as high wind-speed site with a mean wind speed of 7.598 m/s
and having power density 483.50 W/m. The annual energy captured by four selected horizontal
wind turbine models was determined. The result shows that GE 2.0 platform can capture 4.5 GWh
energy in a year which is an acceptable quantity for wind energy.