Estimating potential wind power as a source of electrical power generation in Al-shihabi area, Iraq

Abstract

Al shihabi is one of the highly potential areas when it comes to energy
generated by wind, wind energy is the new source of energy that’s
environment friendly and low in cost non-depletion easy to harnessed by
different users. A general understanding of wind behavior is necessary for the
accurate planning and implementation of any wind energy projects, but due to
the lack of information of wind power at these area further studies of wind is
very important. The goal of this paper is to conduct an investigation on the
wind energy potentials of Al-shihabi area in south of Wassit. For this reason
the wind data was collected for one year from Dec 2014 to Dec 2015 in the
time interval of 10 minutes at heights of 10, 30 and 50 meters then the data
were analyzed using the Weibull probability distribution function and the wind
rose and for the spectral analyzes the Fast Fourier Transform was performed.
With the annual mean wind speed of (6.84) m/sec at 50 m to be used in wind
energy generation as shown in the spectral analysis that the peak was
(185912.078 m/sec/12 hour) at the frequency of (2 Hz) at the 50 m height
throughout the night time but the lowest was (95161.3369 m/sec/12 hour) at
the frequency of (2 Hz) at the 10 m height throughout the night time. The wind
speed during morning hours were higher than that at the night time. While the
governing wind direction at the area was from west-north west and the northnorth west