Evaluation of wind characteristics and feasibility of wind energy in the coastal areas of Bangladesh

Abstract

A statistical analysis of Wind characteristics and investigation of feasibility of wind energy has been conducted. Wind characteristics of coastal regions in Bangladesh have been analyzed and hence a compatible design of horizontal axis wind turbine applicable to the pump has been performed. The available wind data collected by a project work for collecting wind data of the coastal areas in Bangladesh financed by LGED in year 2003 on some stations at a height 10m have been converted for the 20m hub-height using power law. From these data hourly average speed, monthly average speeds have been calculated. It is observed that for few regions of Bangladesh, there is reasonable wind speed available throughout the year to extract power. From this data velocity frequency tables are done and histograms have been plotted for every month for each station and compared with each other. The wind speed distribution is processed anll fitted to the Weibull function to determine the nature of wind regime for that site. The shape factor (k) and scale factor (c) of Weibull function are also determined. Then the Weibull function F(v), Weibull density function f(v) and velocity distribution function S(v) are plotted from the observed and calculated values for each month for each regions. The wind energy concentration (Wh/m2 ) has also been calculated. For a prospective regions of Bangladesh a design of wind turbine for water pumping has been performed based on . the requirement of water of that region. Th-e design incorporates the generalized procedure for determination of rotor and pump sizes. Thus it can be used for any other region as well having the same wind speed range. To present a generalized design for Bangladesh, an empirical relation has been developed for the rotor and the pump sizing for a particular region of Bangladesh.