Wind-resource atlas of Venezuela based on on-site anemometry observation

This paper presents a wind-resource atlas of Venezuela based on wind observations recorded from on-site meteorological stations. Meteorological datasets of 32 weather stations located over northern Venezuela are used in the development of the maps of three main regions in Venezuela: West, Central and East. Hourly observations of wind speed and direction at each anemometer mast, recorded during the period 2005-2007, have been analysed in order to define the statistical description of the wind resource in the studied area. This processed data along with information on elevation and roughness length is used to model the horizontal and vertical extrapolation of wind data and the estimation of the wind resource. An implementation of Mass-conservation Wind-Flow Model in OpenWind software is used to calculate the wind resource at each anemometer mast. A distance-squared interpolation method is proposed as the post-processing procedure and blending technique to create each map upon which a Venezuelan wind atlas is then built. Simulation results include two main wind-resource atlases obtained at 80 m height above ground: (i) a traditional map of mean wind speed for each direction; and (ii) a map of power density. Results show that the best wind-energy resources are located in the northern coastal area of Venezuela. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.