A multifractal description of wind speed records

In this paper, a systematic analysis of hourly wind speed data obtained from four potential wind generation sites in North Dakota is conducted. The power spectra of the data exhibited a power law decay characteristic of 1/fα processes with possible long range correlations. The temporal scaling properties of the records were studied using the sophisticated multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis MFDFA. It is seen that the records at all four locations exhibit similar scaling behavior which is also reflected in the multifractal spectrum determined under the assumption of a binomial multiplicative cascade model.