Variation of AEP to wind direction variability

In this study, we performed a sensitivity analysis to see how the true north error of a wind direction vane installed to a meteorological mast affects predictions of the annual-average wind speed and the annual energy production. For this study, two meteorological masts were installed with a distance of about 4km on the ridge in complex terrain and the wind speed and direction were measured for one year. Cross predictions of the wind speed and the AEP of a virtual wind turbine for two sites in complex terrain were performed by changing the wind direction from to with an interval of . A commercial wind resource prediction program, WindPRO, was used for the study. It was found that the prediction errors in the AEP caused by the wind direction errors occurred up to more than 20% depending on the orography and the main wind direction at that site.