A Study on Generator Capacity for Wind Turbines Under Various Tower Heights and Rated Wind Speeds Using Weibull Distribution

This paper presents a novel approach based on Weibull distribution to determine the capacity of wind turbine generators (WTGs) using capacity factor (CF), normalized average power (P_N), and the product of CF and P_N under different values of tower height and rated wind speed. Five locations for installation of WTG in Taiwan are practically examined. The proposed Weibull distribution is employed to represent probability distribution of wind speed variation, while the important relationships among mean wind speed (MWS), standard deviation of wind speed, and both scale and shape parameters of the Weibull distribution are also derived. The cost of energy (COE) and capital costs of WTG under different tower heights and various locations are also determined. It can be concluded from the simulation results of five installation locations of WTG in Taiwan that suitable values for both shape parameter and scale parameters of Weibull distribution as well as wind turbine capacity are identically important for selecting locations of installing WTG. The scale parameter of Weibull distribution also significantly affects COE, and it is important to determine whether a wind farm is good or not.