Empirical Correlation between Hub Height and Local Wind Shear Exponent for Different Sizes of Wind Turbines

Alarmingly increasing rates of adverse environmental happenings have lead the people from all walks of life towards utilization of clean and renewable sources of energy. Due to technological advancement and availability of efficient wind turbines of few tens of kilowatts to multi-mega-watt seizes which covers all human applications have made the utilization of wind power as the technology of choice. For its optimal utilization, site dependent analysis of the wind and its variation with height and then economics of increasing the tower height (hub height) have become necessary factors. This paper proposes a new correlation for the estimation of optimal hub height for harnessing the power of the wind on economically competitive basis. For this purpose, seven empirical correlations have been developed for seven sites for wind turbines of rated power of 600 to 5000kW. Wind speed measurements made at 20, 30, and 40 meters at seven sites have been used in the present work