Comparative study of numerical methods for determining Weibull parameters for wind energy potential

Weibull distribution has been one of the most widely used distribution to determine potential of wind energy. Many different numerical methods can be used to estimate the parameters of the Weibull distribution. The L-moment method (L-MoM), which has not been used extensively in the previous literature about wind energy for the estimation of wind speed parameters relevant to the Weibull distribution has been presented and this method has been compared to the Moment method (MoM) and Maximum Likelihood (ML) method. Monte Carlo simulation has been used to compare the methods used in the estimation of the shape (k) and scale (c) parameters for a Weibull distribution. Moreover, MoM, L-MoM and ML parameter estimation methods have been used in analyzing an actual data set. Wind power densities have also been calculated with the help of estimated parameter values. We showed that, distribution is skewed to the right or is symmetrical and n >= 100 the ML method is preferable in comparison to other methods in the estimation of the shape (k) parameter. The L-MoM method which we presented in this study may be beneficial for research using small sample sizes. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.