International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

The study addresses to an economic comparison of two proposed wind farms in the same area in Mamaj, Albania, respectively 10.8 MW and 12.6 MW. The 12.6 MW wind farm proposed is predicted to produce 34 GWh energy, with a capacity factor of 30.8%, while the 10.8 MW wind farm is predicted to produce 30.4 GWh, with a capacity factor of 32%. For the 12.6 MW wind farm since there is a higher installed power, is expected to produce more energy, but referring that they will be built in same area, the wake losses will indicate in overall efficiency of the wind farm. The wake losses calculated for the 10.8 MW wind farm are 0.98%, meantime for the 12.6 MW wind farm wake losses is calculated 2.58%, means that the overall efficiency of the 10.8 MW wind farms is higher. For the economic evaluation RETScreen Expert software is used. With a discount rate of 7%, the benefit-cost ratio is 2.9 and simple payback period 7.6 years for 10.8MW wind farm, and for the 12.6 MW the benefit-cost ratio is calculated 2.6, with a simple payback year of 8 years.

Climate change and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, have significantly increased interest globally in implementing technologies utilising renewable energy sources such as wind energy. This rise in interest it also in countries in which there is a lack of data showing longitudinal measures of wind speed. Balkan Wind Atlas was developed from Sander&Partner Institute in October 2014. It offers wind maps that are suitable to identify the windiest areas covering a surface of 325 000 km2 and a database for secured planning of wind energy for Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. This study investigated the high level of consistency of empirical wind measurements conducted on-site, compared to the ones offered in Balkan Wind Atlas. We also explore the ways of utilising the atlas through the WasP software to study wind potencial even in those areas where there are no on-site measurements, thus lowering costs for investments in wind farm projects. The evaluation of the wind energy potential in Topoja area was taken as a case study.

In this study wind potential investigated for the region to the east of Turkey’s Hakkari centers. The wind speed and direction information used in the study were taken from the measurement station belonging to the General Directorate of Meteorology in Hakkari Center. Data sets containing 5 year wind speed and wind direction between 2013 and 2017 taken from this measurement station were analyzed by the WASP program. The NASA SRTM data library in the WASP interface was used to create digital maps for the region. Regional barriers required for areas where wind potentials are searched and roughness maps were created using Google Maps. As a result of these analyzes, annual average wind speed value of 1.96 m / s and average power density of this region in Hakkari Center is calculated as 12 W / m2. The prevailing wind direction belonging to this region has been identified as Southwest, but it has been found that this dominant wind direction changes with great proximity to the Southeast-Northwest sector interval on the South side.