Evaluation of wind energy-based electricity potential at 40m height in 3 districts of Bihar

Abstract

In this study, three northern districts of Bihar, namely, Bettiah, Madhubani, and Muzaffarpur, were carefully chosen to understand the wind energy resource availability for energy conversion. The wind speed data set was gathered from local meteorological station for a period of 12 years from April 2008 to March 2020. For evaluating wind resources, the widely used two-parameter Weibull distribution was combined with other statistical techniques. The obtained results exhibited that the wind speed in the three districts of Bihar fluctuated from 3.2 m/s to 4.7 m/s while the scale and shape parameters (also known as the Weibull parameters) are discovered to be in the ranges of 10.247 to 11.432 and 3.5718 to 4.0477, respectively. Further, wind power density was 22.729, 26.288, and 28.021 W/m$^2$ at 40 m above the ground for the three districts considered in the study. These findings suggested that the places of the study are not suitable for widespread wind power extraction at a hub height of 40 m but suitable for small-scale wind turbine setup.