Addis Ababa University

Addis Ababa Institute of Technology

Center of Renewable Energy

Wind Energy (CRET 6013)

Chapter Two: Wind Resource

Mesfin Belayneh (PhD)

November, 2021
 Outline
☺ The Nature of the Wind,
☺ Geographical Variation in the Wind Resource,
☺ Long-term Wind-speed Variations,
☺ Annual and Seasonal Variations,
☺ Synoptic and Diurnal Variations,
☺ Turbulence,
☺ Turbulence in Wakes and Wind Farms,
☺ Turbulence in Complex Terrain
☺ Gust Wind Speeds,
☺ Extreme Wind Speeds,
☺ Wind resource assessment and forecasting
☺ Wind measurement and instrumentation
Nature of the Wind
• Warm air rises and cools as it expands.
Cool air falls to fill the space left by warm
air. This sets up a vertical convection
current.
• Particles exert a force as they move and
this force per unit area is called pressure.
• If two columns of air have the same
temperature, they will have the same
distribution of air particles and therefore
the same pressure. However, a warmer
column of air will have more height. The
pressure at the same altitude in a cold
and warm air column will be different.
4 Nature of the Wind By Mesfin Belayneh
The columns in the first set have the same
temperature and pressure at each altitude. The
second set shows a cold and warm column. You
have to go higher in the warm column to get the
same pressure as in the cold. Therefore, the
pressure is higher at the same height in the
warmer air column compared to the cold.
Particles move from areas of high pressure to
areas of lower pressure because of a pressure
gradient.
The moving particles exert a pressure-gradient
force. In the case of cold and warm air columns,
air will move from the warm to the cold column at
the same height. This movement generates wind.
Global Heating and Air Circulation

• Unequal heating of the Earth causes

general air circulation. As we have
discovered, global regions receive more
direct radiation and therefore have higher
temperatures.
• The warmer equatorial air rises and moves
toward the polar regions (cooling as it goes).
The colder polar air sinks and is drawn
toward the equator.
Global Heating and Air Circulation
• The fact that the Earth rotates complicates
the circulation. Free-moving objects appear
to deviate from straight-line paths as the
Earth spins.
• This deflection due to Earth‟s rotation is
called the Coriolis effect. The effect is
greatest near the poles and non-existent at
the equator.
 Circulation without rotation (no Coriolis Force) on a
uniform surface (no land/water differences) and no tilt
(no differential heating between hemispheres)
Circulation with rotation on a uniform surface
with no tilt
Circulation with rotation, on non-uniform
surface, and tilt (the 3-cell model)
 Other Atmospheric Circulation Patterns
• The earth’s surface varies considerably, with large ocean and
land masses. These different surfaces can affect the flow of air
due to variations in pressure fields, the absorption of solar
radiation, and the amount of moisture available.
• The movement of air is often affected by the ocean circulation,
result sea breezes and mountain winds.
Smaller scale atmospheric circulation can be divided into
secondary and tertiary circulation.
• Secondary circulation occurs if the centers of high or low
pressure are caused by heating or cooling of the lower
atmosphere.
 hurricanes;
 monsoon circulation;
 extra tropical cyclones.
 Other Atmospheric Circulation Patterns

Tertiary circulations are small-scale, local circulations

characterized by local winds.
• land and sea breezes;
• valley and mountain winds;
• monsoon-like flow;
• foehn winds (dry, high-temperature winds on the downwind side
of mountain ranges);
• thunderstorms;
• tornadoes.
Other Atmospheric Circulation Patterns
Geographical Variation in
the Wind Resource

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 Background

In addition to the global circulation, the local

topography, with its pattern of land masses
and oceans, and thermal effects, has
significant influence on the wind resource
variation.
 Topography

Hills and mountains result in local regions of

increased wind speed. This is partly a result
of altitude – the earth‟s boundary layer means
that wind speed generally increases with
height above ground, and hill tops and
mountain peaks may „project‟ into the higher
wind-speed layers.
 Topography

It is also partly a result of the acceleration of

the wind flow over and around hills and
mountains, and funnelling through passes or
along valleys aligned with the flow.
Equally, topography may produce areas of
reduced wind speed, such as sheltered
valleys, areas in the lee of a mountain ridge or
where the flow patterns result in stagnation
points.
 Thermal effects
Thermal effects may also result in considerable
local variations. Coastal regions are often
windy because of differential heating between
land and sea.
While the sea is warmer than the land, a local
circulation develops in which surface air flows
from the land to the sea, with warm air rising
over the sea and cool air sinking over the land.
When the land is warmer the pattern reverses.
 Thermal effects
The land will heat up and cool down more
rapidly than the sea surface, and so this
pattern of land and sea breezes tends to reverse
over a 24 h cycle.
Thermal effects may also be caused by
differences in altitude. Thus cold air from high
mountains can sink down to the plains below,
causing quite strong and highly stratified
„downslope‟ winds
Wind-speed Variations in
Time

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 Long-term Wind speed variation

The wind speed at any particular location may

be subject to very slow long-term variations.
It is linked to long term temperature variations.
It has been hypothesized that wind speeds have
decreased in the past 30-50 Years. This
phenomenon of reduced wind speeds, termed
„stilling‟ by Roderick et al. (2007), has been
identified at multiple sites in the both
hemispheres over the past several decades.
Typical Summary of regional long-term wind
variation for the Pacific Northwest
 Inter-annual Variations
Inter-annual variations in wind speed occur
over time scales greater than one year. They can
have a large effect on long-term wind turbine
production.
The ability to estimate the inter-annual
variability at a given site is almost as important
as estimating the long-term mean wind at a
site.
 Inter-annual Variations
Meteorologists generally conclude that it takes 30
years of data to determine long-term values of
weather or climate and that it takes at least 5
years to arrive at a reliable average annual wind
speed at a given location.
Aspliden et al. (1986) note that one statistically
developed rule of thumb is that one year of record
data is generally sufficient to predict long-term
seasonal mean wind speeds within an accuracy of
10% with a confidence level of 90%
 Seasonal Variations
Significant variations in seasonal or monthly
averaged wind speeds are common over most of
the world. (refer a typical season variation)
 Diurnal (Time of Day) Variations
This type of wind speed variation is due to
differential heating of the earth‟s surface during
the daily radiation cycle.
A typical diurnal variation is an increase in
wind speed during the day with the wind
speeds lowest during the hours from midnight
to sunrise.
 Diurnal (Time of Day) Variations
Daily variations in solar radiation are
responsible for diurnal wind variations in
temperate latitudes over relatively flat land
areas.
The largest diurnal changes generally occur in
spring and summer, and the smallest in
winter.
The diurnal variation in wind speed may vary
with location and altitude above sea level
 Short-term Variations
Short-term wind speed variations of interest
include turbulence and gusts.
Short-term variations usually mean variations
over time intervals of ten minutes or less. Ten-
minute averages are typically determined using
a sampling rate of about 1 second.
 Short-term Variations
It is generally accepted that variations in wind
speed with periods from less than a second
to ten minutes and that have a stochastic
character are considered to represent
turbulence. For wind energy applications,
turbulent fluctuations in the flow need to be
quantified. For example turbine design
considerations can include maximum load and
fatigue prediction, structural excitations,
control, system operation, and power quality.
 Short-term Variations
Turbulence can be thought of as random wind
speed fluctuations imposed on the mean wind
speed. These fluctuations occur in all three
directions: longitudinal (in the direction of the
wind), lateral (perpendicular to the average
wind), and vertical.
A gust is a discrete event within a turbulent
wind field. Wind gust refers to a phenomenon
that a wind blasts with a sudden increase in
wind speed in a relatively small interval of time.
 Short-term Variations
One way to characterize a gust is to determine:
(a) amplitude, (b) rise time, (c) maximum gust
variation, and (d) lapse time. Wind turbine
structural loads caused by gusts are affected by
these four factors.
 Turbulence
Turbulence in the wind is caused by dissipation
of the wind‟s kinetic energy into thermal energy
via the creation and destruction of progressively
smaller eddies (or gusts).
Turbulent wind may have a relatively constant
mean over time periods of an hour or more, but
over shorter times (minutes or less) it may be
quite variable.
 Causes of turbulence
1. Mechanical Turbulence;
2. Thermal (Convective) Turbulence;
3. Frontal Turbulence;
4. Wind Shear.
 How to Model and Study turbulence?

☺ CFD (Based on Navier-Stokes Equations);

☺ Statistical concepts

– Separating the average and fluctuating

component:
 Turbulence
The wind‟s variability superficially appears to be
quite random, but actually it has distinct
features. These features are characterized by a
number of statistical properties:
• Turbulence intensity;
• Wind speed probability density function;
• Autocorrelation;
• Integral time scale/length scale;
• Power spectral density function.
 Turbulence Intensity (TI)
It is defined by the ratio of the standard
deviation of the wind speed to the mean wind
speed.
 Turbulence Intensity (TI)
Turbulence intensity is frequently in the range of
0.1 to 0.4. In general, the highest turbulence
intensities occur at the lowest wind speeds, but
the lower limiting value at a given location will
depend on the specific terrain features and
surface conditions at the site.
For data shown above, has a mean of 10.4 m/s
and a standard deviation of 1.63 m/s. Thus, the
turbulence intensity, over the ten-minute period, is
0.16.
 Wind Speed Probability Density(WPD) Functions
The probability density function of the wind
speed provides a measure of the likelihood of
particular values of wind speed
Experience has shown that the wind speed is
more likely to be close to the mean value than far
from it, and that it is nearly as likely to be below
the mean as above it. The probability density
function that best describes this type of behavior
for turbulence is the Gaussian, or normal,
 Wind Speed Probability Density(WPD) Functions
The normal probability density function for
continuous data in terms of the variables used is
given by;
The Gaussian probability density function that
represents the data is superimposed on the
histogram.
 Turbulence Scales

•Time scales

– fraction of seconds up to several days

•Spatial scales
– fraction of millimeters up to kilometers
For wind energy applications, Micro-scale turbulence is
our focus
– a fraction of a second up to one hour
 Turbulence scales

Turbulence scales

Decomposing the time

series using furrier
series

Every wavelength can

be thought as a length
scale
 Turbulence spectra
Turbulence spectra: the distribution of kinetic energy the wind
 Integral length scale

Integral length scale It is a term show us the

correlation between time
series wind velocities.
Variations due to Location
and Wind Direction

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 Variations due to Location
Wind speed is also very dependent on local
topographical and ground cover variations.
For example, in Figure shown below (Hiester
and Pennell, 1981), differences between two
sites close to each other can be significant.
 Variations due to Location
The graph shows monthly and five-year mean
wind speeds for two sites 21 km apart. The five-
year average mean wind speeds differ by about
12% (4.75 and 4.25 m/s annual averages).
 Variations in Wind Direction
Wind direction also varies over the same time
scales over which wind speeds vary.
Seasonal variations may be small, on the order
of 30 degrees, or the average monthly winds
may change direction by 180 degrees over a
year. Short-term direction variations are the
result of the turbulent nature of the wind. These
short-term variations in wind direction need to
be considered in wind turbine design and siting.
 Variations in Wind Direction
Horizontal axis wind turbines must rotate (yaw)
with changes in wind direction.
Yawing causes gyroscopic loads throughout
the turbine structure and exercises any
mechanism involved in the yawing motion.
Crosswinds due to changes in wind direction
affect blade loads.
Wind shear

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 Wind shear
Wind shear is a meteorological
phenomenon in which wind
increases with the height
above the ground.
Wind shear is any rapid change
in wind direction or velocity.
Severe wind shear is a rapid
change in wind direction or
velocity causing airspeed
changes greater than 15
knots(~17mph) or vertical speed
changes greater than 500 feet
per minute (around 5-6 mph in
the vertical direction that is a
lot).
 Wind shear
The effect of height on the wind speed is mainly
due to roughness on the earth‟s surface and can
be estimated using different models.

Logarithmic Profile (Log Law)

Where k=0.4
(von Karman‟s constant)
 Wind shear
Power Law Profile: The power law represents a
simple model for the vertical wind speed profile.

Value of power law exponent (α)

 Roughness length

zo=0.0002 m (sea, fjords and lakes) z0=0.03 m (open areas with few bushes and trees)

z0=0.1 m (farm land with bushes and trees)

z0=0.4 m (urban, forest and farm land with many wind breaks)
 Typical Data

Marine

• Timely variation of wind speed with height

from the ground.
Atmospheric stability – day and night
Wind speed and direction varies with height – Day and night
Low wind sunny Windy overcast

Windy night With low-level jet

Extreme Wind Speeds

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 Extreme Wind Speeds
The precise knowledge of occurrence of extreme
wind speed for wind turbine design is of utmost
importance.

The extreme load can occur in two situations:

Standstill position – The wind turbine is

parked and behave like a “normal” civil
engineering structure (wind speed > 25m/s).

Operational condition – The wind turbine is

producing power and behave like a machine
(wind speed 3-25m/s).
 Extreme Wind Speeds
The extreme load during operation is dependent
on:
1. The mean wind speed.
2. The turbulence intensity.
3. The type and settings of the control system.
Tower Midline Moment Flap Bending Moment
Pitch controlled wind turbine Pitch controlled wind turbine
Effect of Terrain on Wind
Characteristics

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 Effect of Terrain on Wind Characteristics
Terrain can be divided it into flat and non-flat /complex
terrain.
• Flat terrain is terrain with small irregularities such as
forest, shelter belts, etc.
• Non-flat terrain has large-scale elevations or depressions
such as hills, ridges, valleys, and canyons, consists of a
great variety of features, and one generally uses the
following sub-classifications: (1) isolated elevation or
depression, and (2) mountainous terrain.
 Effect of Terrain on Wind Characteristics
Flow Over Flat Terrain with Obstacles

Flow in Flat Terrain with a Change in Surface Roughness

 Effect of Terrain on Wind Characteristics
Non-flat Terrain: Small-scale Features

Non-flat Terrain: Large-scale Features

Turbine sitting and farm

locations depend on the
terrain
Wind Resource Assessment

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 Wind Data Analysis and Resource Estimation

Direct Use of Data

Method of Bins

Velocity and Power Duration Curves from Data

Probability Density Function(Rayleigh Distribution &Weibull Distribution

Cumulative Distribution Function

Wind resource assessment and forecasting

Wind Measurement and Instrumentation

Reading assignment!
J. F. Manwell and J. G. McGowan, A. L. Rogers,
WIND ENERGY EXPLAINED: Theory, Design and
Application, Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons
Ltd. And others
Wind Data Analysis and Resource Estimation