Combining Numerical-based Models and Ground-based Measurements for Wind Potential Analysis and Assessment for the UAE

Abstract

As one of the most widely used renewable energy source, wind potential has been explored in many countries and has been thoroughly investigated and researched at academic, commercial and governmental levels. Though UAE is located in Middle East, which has much potential in solar energy, wind energy has also been considered as an alternative to solar energy especially in the night and during dusty days. Also, the levelized cost of wind energy was found to be lower than other solar energy technologies such as CSP, solar thermal energy, according to Masdar Power Company. However, due to the temporal and spatial variations of wind velocity, the UAE wind characteristics should be scrutinized with long term data from a large number of wind stations. This paper presents the background and ideas of the development of wind energy in the UAE. The results from a complete wind data analysis will help to improve our understanding of the wind characteristics and to localize areas with high wind potentials in the UAE. This knowledge is useful to study the spatial and temporal correlation of wind data among stations. Furthermore, vertical extrapolation of wind speed is applied to produce potential wind resource map over the UAE at different heights. This is due to the fact that wind turbines are generally installed at elevations higher than 80 m for better efficiency. Regional specific numerical model is determined to extrapolate wind speed by using measurement from Abu Dhabi. Also, different wind profile exponents and roughness are characterized to assess wind potential accurately. The different characterized wind parameters, wind speed and wind power are spatially interpolated over the UAE using WAsP, WindPRO and GIS software tools.

Date of Award	2012
Original language	American English
Supervisor	Mohamed Hosni Ghedira (Supervisor)