Assessment of an Offshore Wind Farm Potential in the Gulf of Aqaba

With renewable energy sources being the highlight of the energy generation sector in many countries in the past few years, Jordan with its ambitions targets to increase the contribution of renewable energy sources to the national energy supply. This paper aimed to investigate the potential and feasibility of designing an offshore wind farm in the Gulf of Aqaba - the only coastal city in Jordan -. In particular, this study investigates designing an offshore wind farm as a staged process involving: site selection, data gathering, calculation, preliminary design, and feasibility study. The analysis of the designed farm demonstrates acceptable potential; with the aid of the Weibull distribution function. The farm will cover the annual peak load in Aqaba, furthermore, it will be economically feasible due to the short payback period and the good annual income.