Wind characterization and potential assessment using spectral analysis.

This research provides a process for assessment of wind potential using descriptive statistics and spectral analysis. Advantages of spectral analysis are that it not only can identify significant periodic components but also can analyze phase lag and time lag of the significant components for the naturally occurring wind speed time series observed from different locations. On a regional scale, descriptive statistics and spectral analysis can be effectively used to screen out unqualified areas and determine the wind potential of a studied site. In order to demonstrate the method can be effectively used to assess wind potential by wind speed time series, six weather stations in Taiwan are used in this study. The results show that more than half of the observations for Wu-chi station had a mean wind speed of over 4 m/s. The prevailing main wind directions are suggested as being from the North and Northeast for all of the stations. Periodic semi-diurnal and diurnal components are significant for the studied wind speed time series. The results also show that the time lags for the weather stations are one hour or less using Pen-ghu station as a reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]