Investigating seasonal wind energy potential in Vredendal, South Africa

Global warming and the energy crisis have necessi-tated an urgent exploitation and utilisation of renew-able energy. Wind energy has gained popularity over the years because of vast availability of its re-source. A study was carried out to investigate the sto-chastic characteristics of the available wind energy at installation sites. Data for a ten-minute interval wind speed collected over a period of five years and meas-ured at a height of 10, 40 and 62 m in Vredendal was considered. Wind speed data was arranged in seasonal format and its statistical distribution investi-gated based on Weibull, lognormal and gamma dis-tributions. The Anderson-Darling test and Akaike in-formation criterion were used to evaluate the good-ness of fit. The results showed that wind power at different heights and time stamps exhibited different statistical distribution. It was found that wind tur-bines in Vredendal must be installed as high as pos-sible to harness wind power effectively. During sum-mer and spring, there was a high potential for wind power availability compared with that of winter.