PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF SOME SELECTED WIND TURBINES IN HEIPANG WIND SPEED REGIME

Heipang in Plateau State is classified under moderate wind speed regime in Nigeria, thus, has high potential for wind electricity generation. Due to high cost, it is difficult to design a wind turbine for a particular site; therefore, the designer of the wind energy project has to choose from the available options in markets, which come in different sizes and speed characteristics. This paper is aimed at evaluating the performance of some selected wind turbines in Heipang wind speed regime. The method used is based on wind speed analysis and computation of the capacity factors of wind turbines expressed as a product of wind turbines’ power output models and probability distribution of wind speed regime of Heipang; and the total annual energy generation of the wind turbines using Wind Energy Resources Analysis (WERA) software. Results showed that Heipang has an annual mean wind speed of 6.3 m/s and its wind speed regime best fitted into Weibull probability distribution function with average Weibull shape and scale parameters of 3.05 and 7.03 m/s respectively at 10 m height. For small (<10kW), medium (10kW-250kW) and large (>250kW) wind turbines classifications; WT4, WT14 and WT25 have the highest capacity factors of 0.61, 0.7 and 0.53 respectively and WT2, WT22, WT27 have the highest total annual energy generation of 0.0054, 1.12 and 4.03 GWh/year respectively. In conclusion, Heipang has high wind speed potential for wind power technology and wind turbines with higher annual energy generation are better options for selections for wind power generation applications