Wind Energy Potential at Elevated Hub Heights in the US Midwest Region
Publication: Journal of Energy Engineering
Volume 147, Issue 4
Abstract
The US Midwest successfully generates wind power at a hub height of and the use of tall towers can reduce the wind energy cost. However, the lack of reliable wind data and production estimates at elevated heights hamper this effort. In this paper, wind resources and annual energy production (AEP) are studied using wind data up to above ground to estimate and validate AEP as a function of hub height at multiple sites. The AEP results show that energy production can increase by about 10% when the hub height is increased to . It also suggests that the optimal elevated hub height for a given region is not constant. A suitable site-specific height is desirable to minimize the levelized cost of energy (LCOE). Wind information from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit is used as an alternative for estimating AEPs at elevated hub heights. This approach produced somewhat conservative results, confirming its use for wind farm planning purposes when measured wind data are not available.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
The wind resource data to validate the AEP increases and the files revealing the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.
Acknowledgments
This study was partially funded by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy of the DOE under Award No. DE-EE0006737. The authors are very grateful to the Iowa Energy Center for providing the wind resource data in Iowa and Eolos Wind Research Station at the University of Minnesota for providing additional wind data measurements.
References
AWEA (American Wind Energy Association). 2020. Wind powers America annual report 2019. Washington, DC: AWEA.
AWS Truepower. 2010. Final report: Iowa tall tower wind assessment project—Iowa State University. Ames, IA: Iowa Energy Center.
Barutha, P., A. Nahvi, B. Cai, H. D. Jeong, and S. Sritharan. 2019. “Evaluating commercial feasibility of a new tall wind tower design concept using a stochastic levelized cost of energy model.” J. Cleaner Prod. 240 (Dec): 118001. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118001.
Bauer, L., and S. Matysik. 2017. “Siemens SWT-3.2-113 power curve.” Accessed July 18, 2017. https://en.wind-turbine-models.com/turbines/966-siemens-swt-3.2-113#datasheet.
Burt, M., J. Firestone, J. A. Madsen, D. E. Veron, and R. Bowers. 2017. “Tall towers, long blades and manifest destiny: The migration of land-based wind from the great plains to the thirteen colonies.” Appl. Energy 206 (Nov): 487–497. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.08.178.
Celik, A. N. 2004. “A statistical analysis of wind power density based on the Weibull and Rayleigh models at the southern region of Turkey.” Renewable Energy 29 (4): 593–604. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2003.07.002.
Davenport, A. G. 1961. “The spectrum of horizontal gustiness near the ground in high winds.” Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 87 (372): 194–211. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.49708737208.
Deaves, D. M., and I. G. Lines. 1997. “On the fitting of low mean windspeed data to the Weibull distribution.” J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 66 (3): 169–178. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-6105(97)00013-5.
DOE. 2010. “Iowa 80-meter wind resource map.” Accessed June 21, 2017. https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data/32.
DOE. 2015a. Enabling wind power nationwide. Washington, DC: DOE.
DOE. 2015b. Wind vision: A new era for wind power in the United States. Washington, DC: DOE.
Draxl, C., A. Clifton, B. M. Hodge, and J. McCaa. 2015. “The wind integration national dataset (WIND) toolkit.” Appl. Energy 151 (Aug): 355–366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.03.121.
Durán, M. J., D. Cros, and J. Riquelme. 2007. “Short-term wind power forecast based on ARX models.” J. Energy Eng. 133 (3): 172–180. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9402(2007)133:3(172).
Engström, S., T. Lyrner, M. Hassanzadeh, T. Stalin, and J. Johansson. 2010. Tall towers for large wind turbines tall towers: Report from Vindforsk project V–342 Höga torn för vindkraftverk.. Stockholm, Sweden: Elforsk AB.
Frank, C. W., B. Pospichal, S. Wahl, J. D. Keller, A. Hense, and S. Crewell. 2020. “The added value of high resolution regional reanalyses for wind power applications.” Renewable Energy 148 (Apr): 1094–1109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2019.09.138.
García-Bustamante, E., J. F. González-Rouco, P. A. Jiménez, J. Navarro, and J. P. Montávez. 2008. “The influence of the Weibull assumption in monthly wind energy estimation.” Wind Energy 11 (5): 483–502. https://doi.org/10.1002/we.270.
Gualtieri, G., and S. Secci. 2012. “Methods to extrapolate wind resource to the turbine hub height based on power law: A 1-h wind speed vs. Weibull distribution extrapolation comparison.” Renewable Energy 43 (Jul): 183–200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2011.12.022.
Hennessey, J. P. Jr. 1977. “Some aspects of wind power statistics.” J. Appl. Meteorol. 16 (2): 119–128. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1977)016%3C0119:SAOWPS%3E2.0.CO;2.
Hirth, L., and S. Müller. 2016. “System-friendly wind power- how advanced wind turbine design can increase the economic value of electricity generated through wind power.” Energy Econ. 56 (May): 51–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2016.02.016.
Johansson, V., and L. Thorson. 2016. “Modeling of wind power: A techno-economic analysis of wind turbine configurations.” M.S. thesis. Dept. of Energy and Environment, Chalmers Univ. of Technology.
Kelley, N., M. Shirazi, D. Jager, S. Wilde, E. G. Patton, and P. Sullivan. 2004. Lamar low-level jet project interim report.. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
King, J., A. Clifton, and B. M. Hodge. 2014. Validation of power output for the WIND Toolkit. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Lantz, E., O. Roberts, J. Nunemaker, E. DeMeo, K. Dykes, and G. Scott. 2019. Increasing wind turbine tower heights: Opportunities and challenges. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
List, R. J. 1951. Smithsonian miscellaneous collections: Smithsonian meteorological tables. 6th ed. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Meeker W. Q., and L. A. Escobar. 1998. Statistical methods for reliability data. New York: Wiley.
MidAmerican Energy Company. 2015. MidAmerican energy installing first concrete wind turbine tower. Accessed September 10, 2020. https://www.brkenergy.com/news/midamerican-energy-installing-first-concrete-wind-turbine-tower.
MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator). 2014. “Archived historical hourly wind data.” Accessed April 8, 2018. https://www.misoenergy.org/markets-and-operations/real-time--market-data/market-reports/market-report-archives/#nt=%2FMarketReportType%3ASummary%2FMarketReportName%3AArchived%20Historical%20Hourly%20Wind%20Data%20%20(zip)&t=10&p=0&s=MarketReportPublished&sd=desc.
Moné, C., M. Hand, B. Maples, and A. Smith. 2015. 2013 cost of wind energy review. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Petersen, E. L., N. G. Mortensen, L. Landberg, J. Højstrup, and H. P. Frank. 1998. “Wind power meteorology. Part I: Climate and turbulence.” Wind Energy 1 (1): 2–22. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1824(199809)1:1%3C2::AID-WE15%3E3.0.CO;2-Y.
Redburn, R. 2007. “A tall tower wind investigation of northwest Missouri.” M.S. thesis. Dept. of Soil, Environmental and Atmospheric Sciences, Univ. of Missouri.
Schwartz, M., and D. Elliott. 2005. “Towards a wind energy climatology at advanced turbine hub-heights.” In Proc., 15th Conf. Applied Climatology, 1–11. Savannah, GA: American Meteorological Society.
Showers, D. 2014. “System identification for the clipper liberty C96 wind turbine.” M.S. thesis, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, Univ. of Minnesota.
Smith, K., G. Randall, D. Malcolm, N. Kelley, and B. Smith. 2002. “Evaluation of wind shear patterns at midwest wind energy facilities.” In Proc., AWEA WINDPOWER. Portland, OR: AWEA.
Sritharan, S. 2017. Hexcrete tower for harvesting wind energy at taller hub heights—Budget period 2. Washington, DC: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Storm, B., J. Dudhia, S. Basu, A. Swift, and I. Giammanco. 2009. “Evaluation of the weather research and forecasting model on forecasting low-level jets: Implications for wind energy.” Wind Energy 12 (1): 81–90. https://doi.org/10.1002/we.288.
Studylib. 2017. “The new productivity benchwork: Siemens wind turbine SWT-2.3-108.” Accessed July 18, 2017. https://studylib.net/doc/10458843/the-new-productivity-benchmark-siemens-wind-turbine-swt-2….
Takle, E. S., J. M. Brown, and W. M. Davis. 1978. “Characteristics of wind and wind energy in Iowa.” Iowa State J. Res. 3 (2): 313–339.
Walton, R. A., E. S. Takle, and W. A. Gallus. 2014. “Characteristics of 50-200-m winds and temperatures derived from an Iowa tall-tower network.” J. Appl. Meteorol. Climatol. 53 (10): 2387–2393. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-13-0340.1.
Wiser, R., et al. 2019. 2018 wind technologies market report. Washington, DC: DOE.
Wiser, R., D. Millstein, M. Bolinger, S. Jeong, and A. Mills. Forthcoming. “The hidden value of large-rotor, tall-tower wind turbines in the United States.” Wind Eng. 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309524X20933949.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Energy Engineering
Volume 147 • Issue 4 • August 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 13, 2020
Accepted: Jan 21, 2021
Published online: Jun 10, 2021
Published in print: Aug 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Nov 10, 2021
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
Cited by
- Wenzhuo Zhu, Synergetic Scheduling Energy and Reserve of Wind Farms for Power Systems with High-Share Wind Power, Journal of Energy Engineering, 10.1061/JLEED9.EYENG-4711, 149, 2, (2023).
- Dali T. Laxton, Novel Measure of Innovation: Application to the Onshore Wind Energy Sector in the US, Journal of Energy Engineering, 10.1061/(ASCE)EY.1943-7897.0000838, 148, 3, (2022).
- Jiansheng Huang, Zhuhan Jiang, Michael Negnevitsky, Ancillary Service by Tiered Energy Storage Systems, Journal of Energy Engineering, 10.1061/(ASCE)EY.1943-7897.0000812, 148, 1, (2022).