Author(s)

Mariana G. Benevit, Jones S. Silva, André G. Gewehr, Alexandre Beluco

Instituto de Pesquisas Hidráulicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Wind power is an increasingly important alternative for obtaining energy supplies, both in large interconnected power systems and in smaller hybrid systems and even in backup systems. The temporal and spatial variability of the winds represent an obstacle to be overcome so that wind energy can be increasingly used. The capacity factor of wind farms shows how this variability impacts the operation of the plants and its value is of the order of 30% to 35%. The variability of the wind speed is influenced if the point of interest is on land or on sea, the shape of the surface, the proximity of water bodies, among other factors. The availability of wind is best described by the Weibull probability distribution, which has as one of its defining parameters one which is termed as shape parameter. This parameter is much higher as higher is the variability of the wind speed. This paper studies the subtle influence of Weibull shape parameter on the optimal combination of components in a wind diesel hybrid system, by means of computer simulations with the well known software Homer. The results indicate a relatively small influence (as expected) in the studied system, which appears particularly when the cost of diesel is higher and the availability of wind is lower.

Wind Energy, Wind Diesel Hybrid Systems, Weibull Shape Parameter, Southern Brazil, Computational Simulation, Software Homer

Benevit, M. , Silva, J. , Gewehr, A. and Beluco, A. (2016) Subtle Influence of the Weibull Shape Parameter on Homer Optimization Space of a Wind Diesel Hybrid Gen Set for Use in Southern Brazil. Journal of Power and Energy Engineering, 4, 38-48. doi: 10.4236/jpee.2016.48004.