Wind resource assessment comparison on a complex terrain employing WindPRO and WindSim

Abstract: Accurate wind resource assessment is of high importance for wind farm development. This thesis estimates and compares the annual energy production results produced employing two wind farm design tools WindPRO and WindSim for a site located in Greece. Two years of data are available from a 56 meter met mast. The data are analyzed filtered and converted to appropriate formats for usage by the wind farm design tools. Abnormalities in the wind data are observed, investigated and presented. For energy calculations in WindPRO different roughness data and height contours are used and evaluated resulting to 36 different energy estimations. The result show that the annual energy production results for different parameters have a difference from 0,07% to 8,18 %. Concerning energy estimations using WindSim a grid sensitivity study is produced utilizing a low resolution grid to an ever more refined grid for different boundary layer heights and air density’s. Parameters introducing uncertainties and energy losses in the calculations are identified and quantified. Using the annual energy production, uncertainty and energy losses the P50, P75, P90 are produced for WindPRO, WindSim and are compared. These result indicate a good approximation in the estimated values from both wind farm design tools, for the investigated site the result differences vary from 0,2 % - 2,0%.