A Case Study of Installation of a Wind Power Plant in the Sinop Province, Turkey

Abstract

World energy demand has been increasing very rapidly, resulting in environmental issues such as the greenhouse effect and air pollution. This situation stimulates the developing countries to benefit more efficiently from alternative energy sources. In parallel to this policy, Turkey as a developing country has been increasing incentives and investments to wind power conversion systems. Thanks to these investments, the numbers of the wind power plants (WPP) have been increasing in the country each passing day. In this study, the Sinop Province where wind potential is high, is analyzed in terms of establishment of a WPP. Four years of hourly average wind speed data of the selected region are applied to the Windsim software: annual energy production, capacity factor and also power and energy curves of selected wind turbines are obtained as output. The study shows that a WPP that has approximately 29 GWh/y annual energy production and 33% capacity factor can be operated with five Vestas V90 commercial wind turbines.