Estimating the yield of micro wind turbines in an urban environment: A methodology

Micro wind turbines currently have the majority share of micro (electricity) generation installations in Ireland. These technologies are being installed predominantly in rural environments, and current applications to the Distribution Services Operator (DSO) for connection of all types of micro generator stand at less than 500. Poor market dissemination of information and research findings compounded with poor options for spill payment - as well as onerous planning restrictions do not - it appears - create a platform conducive to encouraging development in this market. This paper outlines the complexities associated with evaluating the wind resource within an urban environment and investigates the means to `estimate´ wind regimes in an urban environment based on an extrapolation of a reference wind speed from a rural environment into the urban area. Methodologies for estimating the wind speed in such circumstances are considered with modeled wind data - benchmarked against wind data acquired from a site in the city centre - being applied to a set of commercially available wind turbines.