Authors : Youssef Kassem, Hüseyin Camur, Sama A.M. Abughinda and Ali Sefik
Abstract: This study investigates the wind characteristics and available wind energy for six stations in Northern Cyprus, namely Famagusta, Rizokarpaso, Ercan, Nicosia, Kyrenia and Morphou. Based on 7 year (2010-2016) wind data recorded at these stations, Weibull distribution using three different methods called maximum likelihood (MLM), moment (MM) and least squares (LSM) methods were used for the statistical analysis of the obtained data at a height of 10 m. The power law model is utilised to determine the yearly and monthly mean wind speed at various heights of 30, 50, 80 and 90 m. Moreover, Wind Power Density (WPD) was estimated using three numerical methods. The results illustrated that Famagusta is the most applicable location for harvesting the kinetic energy of the wind, while Rizokarpaso has been classified as the second most applicable site. Furthermore, power density results indicated that the wind energy source in these regions is categorized to be very poor. Consequently, it is concluded that the average wind powers indicate that small-scale wind turbines are more suitable than high capacity wind turbines in the selected regions.
Youssef Kassem, Hüseyin Camur, Sama A.M. Abughinda and Ali Sefik, 2020. Wind Energy Potential Assessment in Selected Regions in Northern Cyprus Based on Weibull Distribution Function. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 15: 128-140.