Wind Energy Feasibility Study - Town Of Orleans

Wind Energy Facility Economic AnalysisTown of Orleans, MAWeston & Sampson also reviewed the AWS TrueWind Map model of wind speeds for thewatershed location considered in this study. The predicted annual average wind speeds obtainedfrom Mass GIS database, are summarized in Table 2-1 below.Table 2-1: AWS Predicated Wind Speeds (m/s) atVarious Heights Above Ground Level (m)Location 30 m 50 m 70 m 100 mSite 1 5.4 m/s 6.2 m/s 6.8 m/s 7.6 m/sThe AWS TrueWind estimates are useful for site screening and, while they do not replace theaccuracy of site specific anemometry, they are typically considered to be reliable with a 94%factor of confidence.Weston & Sampson also reviewed 3TIER's global wind map, their wind speeds were comparedwith publicly available wind speed observations from more than 4,000 globally distributedmeteorological stations from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)Automated Data Processing (ADP) surface observations dataset.The 3TIER data claims that the difference is less than 0.5 m/s at 50% of the stations, and thedifference is less than 1 m/s at 78% of the stations. The overall bias is +0.05 m/s relative toNCEP ADP observations, and the root mean square error (RMSE) is 0.93 m/s. The 3TIER rangeof wind speeds are summarized in Table 2-2 below:Table 2-2: 3TIER Predicated Range of Wind Speeds (m/s) atVarious Heights Above Ground Level (m)Location 20 m 50 m 80 mSite 1 4.3 - 7.2 m/s 5.3 - 7.5 m/s 5.7 - 7.7 m/sThe data and wind speed values obtained from the on site anemometers was used in this study topredict energy production.7