Development and economic assessment of a grid connected 20 MW installed capacity wind farm

The study presents the design and economic assessment of a wind farm of 20 MW installed capacity, located in the Eastern region of Saudi Arabia. The wind farm is designed using 2 MW size wind machines from Vestas at a hub-height of 60 m using specialized WindFarm software. The land area is considered as flat and away from airports, habitats, hospitals, and communication towers. The energy yield and the wake losses were obtained from the energy yield module of the software for the wind farm. On-site data was collected for a period of 1 year and historical meteorological data was obtained from nearby station were utilized in the design of the proposed wind farm. The proposed wind farm could generate 59,037.7 MW h of electricity annually with plant capacity factor of 33.7%, excluding the wake losses of 3.48%. With prevalent wind turbine and other equipment costs, installation, civil works, balance of plants and operation and maintenance costs, the proposed wind farm could produced the energy at US not subset of 2.94 per kW h. This study clearly indicates that grid connected wind farms could be developed in and around the measurement site. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.