Wind Resource Atlas for Southern Australia

Abstract

A new process of combining existing wind modelling software has been presented, which is competitive with existing processes of wind modelling in terms of accuracy and efficiency. When compared to real wind speed data, the final rms error in the prediction of average wind speed was around 8%. Further, a model for developing a cost-of-energy atlas is also presented, based on customized GIS tools. Both of these methods can be used with additional land data to quickly identify key sites for wind power development and to ensure rational placement of wind monitoring towers. Indeed, the cost of assessing the wind potential of a large area of land may be less than the cost of one misplaced wind monitoring tower.