Fractal dimension of wind speed time series

The fluctuation of wind speed within a specific time period affects a lot the energy conversion rate of wind turbine. In this paper, the concept of fractal dimension in chaos theory is applied to investigate wind speed characterizations; numerical algorithms for the calculation of the fractal dimension are presented graphically. Wind data selected is observed at three wind farms experiencing different climatic conditions from 2006 to 2008 in Taiwan, where wind speed distribution can be properly classified to high wind season from October to March and low wind season from April to September. The variations of fractal dimensions among different wind farms are analyzed from the viewpoint of climatic conditions. The results show that the wind speeds studied are characterized by medium to high values of fractal dimension: the annual dimension values lie between 1.61 and 1.66. Because of monsoon factor, the fluctuation of wind speed during high wind months is not as significant as that during low wind months: the value of fractal dimension reveals negative correlation with that of mean wind speed, irrespective of wind farm considered. For a location where the wind distribution is well described by Weibull function, its fractal dimension is not necessarily lower. These findings are useful to wind analysis. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.