Wind resources in North-East geopolitical zone, Nigeria: An assessment of the monthly and seasonal characteristics

Olayinka S. Ohunakin

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2011, vol. 15, issue 4, 1977-1987

Abstract: This paper evaluates wind speed data of 37 years, 1971-2007 periods measured at 10Â m height for five meteorological stations in North-East geo-political zone, Nigeria, namely Bauchi, Nguru, Maiduguri, Yola and Potiskum that have been analyzed statistically to examine the monthly and seasonal variation of the wind characteristics. Wind data at 50Â m hub height were obtained by extrapolating the 10Â m data using the power law. The results proved Bauchi and Maiduguri to be the best sites among the five locations with monthly mean wind speeds ranging from 3.96 to 7.04Â m/s and 4.49 to 6.10Â m/s respectively while monthly average power density varies between 61.33-299.88Â W/m2 and 63.80-173.70Â W/m2 in that order, followed by Potiskum recording monthly mean wind speed ranging from 3.92 to 5.68Â m/s coupled with an average power density between 53.82 and 150.84Â W/m2 in April and June. A Weibull distribution also gave a better fit than actual data while further investigations revealed higher wind speeds in the morning hours for Nguru, Maiduguri and Potiskum together with equal monthly periods of rainy and wet seasons whereas Bauchi and Yola are windier in the afternoon than morning periods with almost comparable months of rainy and dry seasons. Furthermore, wind availability shows that Maiduguri has wind speed above 4Â m/s, 100% of the time in the two seasons while Bauchi, Nguru, Potiskum and Yola have approximately 80 and 100%, 50 and 50%, 75 and 75%, 50 and 50% periods of wind availability above 4Â m/s in the dry and rainy seasons respectively.

Keywords: North-East; geopolitical; zone; Mean; wind; speed; Power; density; Wind; energy; Nigeria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364-0321(11)00003-7
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:15:y:2011:i:4:p:1977-1987

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().