Wind power design in isolated energy systems: Impacts of daily wind patterns

Increasing levels of intermittent renewables, especially wind power, in energy systems require accurate temporal characterisation of the resources’ availability at seasonal, daily and hourly scales. This is crucial for isolated energy systems, where increasing wind power penetration is limited due to costly backup power generation requirements. In the case studies presented in this paper, the energy systems of two islands are simulated using a new methodology for synthetic wind speed scenarios including daily wind patterns. A trade-off analysis was conducted in terms of surplus wind power and renewables penetration rate, with the objective of supplying decision support on wind turbine placement. Results show that there may be a significant advantage in locating future wind parks on sites where wind speed patterns better match electricity demand patters, rather than just choosing a site with the highest mean wind speed, but only if the annual mean wind speed is still sufficiently high to make the investment economically feasible.