Prospects of wind farm development in Algeria

This paper utilized wind speed data over a period of almost 10 years between 1977 and 1988 from three stations, Adrar, Timimoun and Tindouf, in order to assess the energy output for a 30 MW installed capacity wind farm at each site in Algeria in terms of gross energy, renewable energy delivered, specific yield and wind farm capacity factor. The energy output analysis was done using three wind energy conversion systems (WECs) of 600, 1000 and 2000 kW rated capacity. The RETScreen model was used to perform the economics feasibility study of the wind farms at these locations. The study concluded that a wind farm consisting of 30 wind turbines of I MW rated power each is more feasible for all sites than using other WECSs. Finally, wind park development at Adrar will avoid 45,111 tons of greenhouse gases (GHG) each year and about 1, 127,775 tons of GHG over the lifetime of the wind power plant. Similarly, at Timimoun and Tindouf a total of 900,925 and 639,475 tons of GHG could be prevented from entering the local atmosphere of these stations.