Economic index for selection of wind turbine generator at a site

In this paper a new methodology to select a wind turbine generator from the view point of performance and economic considerations is presented. Weibull probability density function is used to analyze the wind data and the performance analysis is based on computing the capacity factors. The economic considerations involve computation of cost of energy based on the energy yield, capital cost, operation and maintenance costs and fixed charge rate of the wind turbines under study at the site. The wind site selected for the study is located at Basaveshwar Engineering College Bagalkot, Karnataka, India. Wind velocities are recorded from a 50-meter wind mast set up under the research grant received from Technical Education Quality Improvement Program of the World Bank. The period of measurement of wind velocities is from June 2007 to May 2008. Four small wind turbine generators of size 0.4 kW, 0.65 kW, 1.5 kW and 4.2 kW respectively and locally available in India are used for the study. A novel methodology to compute economic index to select economically viable wind turbine generator is derived and presented in the paper. Economic indices for the four turbines under study are computed. A detailed discussion of the results to select an economically viable wind turbine generator is presented.