Impact of wind turbine modeling on a renewable energy system

This paper investigates the influence of the wind turbine (WT) modeling on an on-grid wind energy system installed in Ibrahimyya, a city in Jordan. A closer look is taken at parameters affecting the output power for correctly modeling the system. This helps in monitoring the turbine performance, sizing of the wind farm and the entire system, which significantly affect the energy extracted per year (EEPY) from the wind turbines (WTs) and the entire system. The net present cost (NPC), grid operating cost (GOC), initial capital cost (ICC) and the cost of energy (COE) are affected. As the WT model changes from the linear to quadratic and on to the cubic model the system has progressively more percentage error in the estimation of the cost as well as EEPY, which cannot be neglected. In fact, the EEPY difference has to be supplied by the conventional generation of the utility grid, which is more expensive than wind energy. However, this is the result of imprecise sizing solutions, which result in error estimates for the project investment. So, an improved cubic model (ICM) is suggested to model the WT precisely by considering more parameters such as the air density. The WT model designed at sea level, shows error estimates in cost and EEPY compared with the ICM. This paper investigates the effects of elevation above sea level (a.s.l) and temperature to model the WT in addition to wind speed and WT power coefficient. Therefore, the simplified WT models will not deliver the EEPY that is theoretically possible. The more costly utility conventional fuel plants will have to replace this energy deficit. In other words, to solve a real-world problem, the real values for parameters affecting the WT model must be considered. This same procedure can be applied in any location worldwide.