Wind characteristics and wind energy potential in Morocco

The wind characteristics of 11 sites in the windy regions in Morocco have been analysed. The annual average wind speed for the considered sites ranged from 5 m/s to 10 m/s and the average power density from 100 W/m 2 to 1000 W/m 2, which might be suitable for electrical power production by installing wind farms. On an annual scale the observations of the distribution of hourly wind speed are better fitted by the Weibull hybrid distribution in contrast to the Weibull distribution. The wind power is estimated to be 1817 MW, that is to say, the exploitable wind energy is 15198 GWh, which represents theoretically 11% of the total consumed energy in Morocco in 1994.