Assessment of Wind Energy Resource in High-altitude Complicated Mountainous Terrain
This study performed wind energy resource potential assessment of a high-altitude mountainous area in Liangs-han Prefecture,Sichuan Province as the research area by collecting and processing the statistical data from a meteorologi-cal station from 1981 to 2015 and the measured data from 4 wind towers for 1 year.It was found that the local topography of the area is complex with an altitude of 3530~3950 meters and an area of about 40 square kilometers.It is greatly influ-enced by the southwest wind and the wind energy resources are relatively abundant.Frequency analysis revealed that the wind direction in this area is stable with the maximum wind speed and wind energy in the WSW direction.The wind power density level of the area is calculated to be Class 2,which belongs to IEC Wind Turbine Class II/III.In addition,the study showed that the 50-year extreme maximum wind speed in the area is lower than the IEC standard value,but the turbu-lence intensity reaches IEC Class B,and the fatigue load impact on wind turbines needs assessment.This study provides a scientific wind energy resource assessment method for wind farm development in complex topography highland mountain-ous areas and also proposes suggestions for the wind farm design.
high-altitude areamountainous terrainwind energy resource assessmentextreme wind speed