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status: [21st October 2010] workings

Wind Speed Data - Eyre Peninsula

• Introduction
• Data Basics
• Data Files
• Data Characterisation
• Remarks

Introduction

The Eyre Peninsula Wind Resources is of particular interest due to the Green Grid Proposal for 2 GW installed capacity of Wind Farms in this region (stage 1; then another 2 GW in a more tentative stage 2).

Here we establish some BoM Wind Data for the Eyre Peninsula, for use in estimating the variability of the power that would be produced in the case of these Wind Farms being built.

In this first instance we only look at only 2009 data; other / earlier data will be utilised as needed.

Use of the data presented here is found in: simulating wind farms on the Eyre Peninsula from wind-speed data

Data Basics

The following figure shows the locations of 16 BoM stations on the Eyre Peninsula for which we obtained historical BoM wind data; also shown are the existing Mt Millar and Cathedral Rocks Wind Farms. The map of proposed sites is taken from p37 of the Green Grid report (with the central and central western marked blocks indicating the proposed regions for stage one development.).

That is, we have 'Synoptic' level data (3 or more hours between data points) for all 16 BoM stations, with some going back many years. Ten of these have 'hourly' data -- at least for more recent years ('hourly' sometimes encompassing half hourly), and in two cases (#18200 and #18012) we also received minute level data. Details on the year spans and data quality for all these cases can be provided when needed, but for now we focus on the hourly data, and restrict attention to 2009. It is the 2009 data for the 10 'hourly' sets that is provided below.

For easy reference here is a table with some information on the stations:

Data Files

Here is a gzipped flatfile with hourly data for ten Eyre Peninsula BoM wind stations:
EPwind_R1_60min_2009.flat.gz (85 KB) and a plain csv version (79 KB).

- Just 2009 for now (other years are easily produced as needed)
- Flatfile in OzEA format
- Speeds in m/s; time in AEST
- Isolated missing data points have been infilled as the average of the adjacent values
- Where the BoM data is half hourly it is thinned to give hourly data.

Data Characterisation

For each Station the data has been eyeballed and the overall histogram examined. Nothing untoward observed.
Here are some basic stats on the data: number of missing data points (NaNs), number of zero wind speed readings, and the overall median value (m/s) for the year. Note that there are 8760 hours in the year.

BoM:   18012  18083  18116  18120  18191  18192  18195  18200  18201  18217
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NaNs:     48      2      3      0    120      6     13      4      2    157
Zeros:   181    424    275    165    156    226    240     29    186    487
Median   5.1    4.1    5.1    4.6    5.7    5.1    4.6    6.2    5.1    4.1

For the record these data show a clear diurnal pattern (Figure above); these curves are simply indicative of the Wind on the Eyre Peninsula. We single out only the Thevenard Wind Station (#18200) in bold.

Remarks

Some subjective consideration of the BoM sites, using Google Earth and looking for good exposure to the SW, and also eyeballing of the data files, lead to the first tentative assessment of the sites:
Picks: 018200, 018191, 018116, 018083
Possibility: 018195, 018012, 018192
Poor: 018120, 018217, 018201

The proposed central site is near both BoM #18116 (Cleve Aerodrome), and the existing Mt Millar Wind Farm.

While the proposed western site is close to #18089 (Elliston), this is synoptic data, with hourly costal data (for west side of the peninsula) available at either #18200 (Thevenard, 200 km up the coast), or #18191 (Coulta / Coles Point, 100 km down the coast). Somewhat further down again is the Cathedral Rocks Wind Farm. Using these somewhat distant BoM stations will introduce some timing differences at least, although this may not be a big deal when we are looking at the gross variability.

The stage 2 southern site has a correspondence with the #18217 BoM site (Cummins Areo).

The stage 2 northern site is elevated at ~200m, and Port Augusta wind data may be quite different. Synoptic data at #18032 (Nonning) is close to the mark. While not included here, the Woomera Aerodrome (#16001) is a further ~100 km north, and may be a better option than Port Augusta.

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fc - 21 Oct 2010