Study on the Maximum Entropy Principle applied to the annual wind speed probability distribution: A case study for observations of intertidal zone anemometer towers of Rudong in East China Sea

This paper is to study Weibull distribution and Maximum Entropy Principle applied to fit the wind speed frequency distribution of the intertidal zone anemometer towers. Comparisons of the results from Weibull distribution and Maximum Entropy distribution are made for the characteristics of the wind speed distribution and the variation with height in the offshore area. The Maximum Entropy distribution is found to perform adequately and accurately in fitting the wind speed frequency distribution with height. It is shown that the frequency peak value of Weibull distribution is lower than the measured maximum frequency at the same height, and the fitting accuracy of the Maximum Entropy Principle is significantly higher than that of Weibull distribution. Furthermore, the mean errors of average effective wind power density calculated from the five-parameter Maximum Entropy distribution as well as from Weibull distribution are 1.71 W m−2 and 7.48 W m−2 respectively. Except for these findings, limitations and problems existing in the procedure of fitting the annual wind speed probability distribution are also discussed.