Methods for estimating wind speed frequency distributions.

Abstract

The Weibullfunction is discussed for representation of the windspeed frequency distribution. Methods are presented for estimating the two Weibullparameters (scale factor c and shape factor k) from simple wind statistics. Comparison is made with a recently proposed method based on the 'square-root-normal' distribution with mean windspeed and fastest mile data as input statistics. The Weibulldistribution is shown to give smaller rootmeansquare errors than the square root normal distribution when fitting actual distributions of observed windspeed. Another advantage of the Weibulldistribution is the available methodology for projecting to another height the observed Weibulldistribution parameters at anemometer height. (A)