Preliminary assessment of wind power potential over the coastal region of Bheemunipatnam in northern Andhra Pradesh, India

This paper presents a preliminary Wind Power Potential (WPP) assessment for coastal site Bheemunipatnam located in the northern region of Andhra Pradesh, India. The novelty and major contribution of this paper stems from the fact that till date WPP has been done only up to the height of 80 m and no one has attempted it up to the height of 150 m in the steps of 10 m for said site. Power law has been used to estimate WPP at these heights. The paper will be a guiding document for policy makers, power and energy engineers as well as for researchers working in this area for providing solution to the problem of burgeoning gap between demand and supply of energy. The Cubic Factor (CF) method and Weibull model have been subjected in the present analysis. The long-term daily wind speed data for the period of 32 years (1983-2014) at a 10 m height has been collected from NASA website. In addition, Weibull and cumulative distribution functions have been determined at different heights. Finally, comparison of mean Wind Power Density (WPD) obtained from both the models has been statistically investigated, tested, and presented in section 5 and 6, respectively. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.