Comparative Study of Different Methods for Estimating Weibull Parameters: A Case Study on Jeju Island, South Korea

Dongbum Kang, Kyungnam Ko and Jongchul Huh
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Dongbum Kang: Multidisciplinary Graduate School Program for Wind Energy, Graduate School, Jeju National University, 102 Jejudaehakro, Jeju 63243, Korea
Kyungnam Ko: Faculty of Wind Energy Engineering, Graduate School, Jeju National University, 102 Jejudaehakro, Jeju 63243, Korea
Jongchul Huh: Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Jeju National University, 102 Jejudaehakro, Jeju 63243, Korea

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 2, 1-19

Abstract: On Jeju Island, South Korea, an investigation was conducted to determine the best method for estimating Weibull parameters. Six methods commonly used in many fields of the wind energy industry were reviewed: the empirical, moment, graphical, energy pattern factor, maximum likelihood, and modified maximum likelihood methods. In order to improve the reliability of a research result, five-year actual wind speed data taken from nine sites with various topographical conditions were used for the estimation. Furthermore, the effect of various topographical conditions on the accuracy of the methods was analyzed and 10 bin interval types were applied to determine the most appropriate bin interval based on their performances. Weibull distributions that were estimated using these methods were compared with the observed wind speed distribution. Then the accuracy of each method was evaluated using four accuracy tests. The results showed that of the six methods, the moment method had the best performance regardless of topographical conditions, while the graphical method performed the worst. Additionally, topographical conditions did not affect the accuracy ranking of the methods for estimating the Weibull parameters, while an increase of terrain complexity resulted in an increase of discrepancy between the estimated Weibull distribution and the frequency of the observed wind speed data. In addition, the choice in bin interval greatly affected the accuracy of the graphical method while it did not depend on the accuracy of the modified maximum likelihood method.

Keywords: wind energy; wind data; Weibull distribution; Weibull parameters; ruggedness index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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