Investigation of wind energy potentials in Brunei Darussalam

Abstract

Conventional power generation mainly depends on natural gas and diesel oil in Brunei Darussalam. The power utility company is now thinking of power generation using natural wind. In this paper, wind energy, being one of the most readily available renewable energy sources, was studied. The wind characteristic, velocity and directions were studied using Weibull distribution based on the measurement of wind speed at two different locations in Brunei Darussalam. These wind speed distributions were modeled using the Wind Power program. The wind rose graph was obtained for the wind direction to analyze the wind power density onshore and offshore. Based on this analysis, it has been found that the wind speed of 3 to 5 m/s has a probability of occurrence of 40%. Besides, the annual energy production at a wind speed of 5 m/s has been found to be in the range between 1000 and 1500 kWh for both the locations in Brunei Darussalam.

Keywords

wind speed / Weibull distribution / wind rose / wind energy / wind power

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Notations

v	Unsteady wind speed component
\bar{v}	Mean value of v
σ	Standard deviation of wind speed
k	A factor that determines the shape of the curve
c	Scale parameter with unit of speed/(m∙s−1)
ρ	The density of air, 1.225 kg/m3
Ar	The rotor cross-sectional area in m2
Um	The average wind speed/(m∙s−1)

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