ANALYSIS OF WIND POWER AND WIND POWER CHARACTERISTICS: AL-AQIQ CITY, SAUDI ARABIA

The annual monthly and yearly mean wind speed variations in King Saud airport, Al-Aqiq, KSA are collected and studied to investigate the feasibility to generate electrical power. Average wind speeds and wind power have been determined daily, monthly and annual. The parameters of the shape and scale of the Weibull density distribution function and the scale of the Rayleigh distribution function have been calculated. Comparison of the Weibull model with Rayleigh's distribution of wind power densities. The comparison revealed that the Weibull distribution function well reflects wind data as compared to Rayleigh density distribution. The mean wind speed for the Al-Aqiq region is about 3.39 m/s over a 38-year time period with a main direction of southwest. The diurnal study showed that the wind speed remains above 3.0 m/s from 09:00 AM to 10:00 PM and below it during the rest of the day's hours. A seasonal analysis shows that in summer, the wind speed is highest (4.41 m/s with a mainly northnorthwest direction). The generation of wind energy by Aeronautica Windpower, Dewind, Enercon, Soyut Wind, Nordex and SouthWest at a hub height of 50 m has been considered for 15 wind machines of various sizes. The highest capacity factors (35.31%) were calculated for Soyut Wind 250 (773.370 MWh/Year). These results indicate that it is feasible to generate power from wind energy in the Al-Aqiq region for providing energy demands.