A new probabilistic method to estimate the long-term wind speed characteristics at a potential wind energy conversion site

This paper proposes the use of a new Measure-Correlate-Predict (MCP) method to estimate the long-term wind speed characteristics at a potential wind energy conversion site. The proposed method uses the probability density function of the wind speed at a candidate site conditioned to the wind speed at a reference site. Contingency-type bivariate distributions with specified marginal distributions are used for this purpose. The proposed model was applied in this paper to wind speeds recorded at six weather stations located in the Canary Islands (Spain). The conclusion reached is that the method presented in this paper, in the majority of cases, provides better results than those obtained with other MCP methods used for purposes of comparison. The metrics employed in the analysis were the coefficient of determination (R-2) and the root relative squared error (RRSE). The characteristics that were analysed were the capacity of the model to estimate the long-term wind speed probability distribution function, the long-term wind power density probability distribution function and the long-term wind turbine power output probability distribution function at the candidate site. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.