Document Type : ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
Authors
1 Department of Civil Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty, Near East University, 99138 Nicosia, Cyprus
2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Faculty, Near East University, 99138 Nicosia, Cyprus
Abstract
Economic evaluation of 12 MW grid-connected wind farms and PV power plants in two regions in Northern Cyprus for electricity generation was investigated. The wind speed, sunshine duration, and solar global radiation characteristics were analyzed using monthly data collected over 17 years (2000-2016) for Girne and nine years (2008-2016) for Lefkoşa, which were measured at various heights. The result showed that during 2000-2016, the mean wind speed at Girne was 2.505 m/s and during 2008-2016, the mean wind speed at Lefkoşa was 2.536 m/s. The result showed that both regions had annual mean wind speed greater than 2 m/s at 10 m height. Moreover, the annual mean sunshine duration and global solar radiation were higher than seven h/day and 15 MJ./m2/day at a height of 2 m for all studied regions, respectively. In this study, eight distribution functions were used to analyze the wind speeds and global solar radiation data in each region. The results indicated that Weibull and Logistic were the best distributions for analyzing the wind speeds and global solar radiation data of the studied regions, respectively. Furthermore, the capacity factors of the selected regions ranged between 1.92% and 48.53%. Based on the renewable energy cost results, it is found that the generation costs of the wind farm were between 0.023 and 0.04 Euro/kWh, while the PV plant was between 0.08 and 0.098 Euro/kWh.
Graphical Abstract
Highlights
- Wind power potential of the selected regions is suitable for low capacity wind turbine
- The selected regions in Northern Cyprus have a huge solar potential and actual market opportunities for investors to develop grid-connected PV projects compared to wind farm projects
- The grid-connected PV and wind farm projects are still economically feasible in all selected regions in Northern Cyprus.
Keywords
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