Pattern Aggregation of Wind Energy Conversion Technologies Using Clustering Analysis

The main objective of this research is the identification of homogeneous groups within a set of wind farms of a major wind energy promoter in Portugal, based on two multivariate analyses: Hierarchical Cluster Analysis and K-means Clustering, using two independent variables, capacity factor and net production, both per year. K-means Clustering output provides the same results as the Hierarchical Cluster Analysis. Outputs allowed the identification of three homogenous groups of wind farms: (1) medium installed capacity and asynchronous generator based technologies, (2) high installed capacity and direct driven synchronous generator based technology and (3) low installed capacity with no differentiation on the technology concept, but including the wind farms with the higher capacity factors.