Project Information
- Partner: CSIR Energy Center
- Students: Daniel Sebapu (SMU), Emily Muller (AIMS), Enathi Motolwana (UP)
- Project Lead: Dr. Vukosi Marivate
- Project Mentors: Asive Dlaba
- Year: 2017/2018
Project Description
The deployment of a wind farm requires multiple stages as shown below. For the purpose of our work, we will only consider the first two stages: prefeasibility and prospecting, and the wind resource assessment (WRA). The former requires analysis to determine which regions are suit- able wind farm locations, taking into consideration con- straints such as land availability and logistics. The latter makes use of long term meterological data from anenome- ters on site to quantify the wind resource. Quantification requires computational fluid dynamic models based on tur- bines, airflow and terrain. Our aim is provide a free and interactive prefeasibility and prospecting online tool for the South African wind energy sector. Whilst the expertise of a full WRA is irreplacable, we aim to provide estimates of wind resource in the country. This project sits within the research objective of the CSIR Energy Centre to establish an all-South African wind power development framework. We see this tool being useful for independent power producers (IPP’s) in order to assist in choosing suitable locations to carry out a WRA. With pos- sible future technologies and price competition it may be feasible for community wind farm projects to utilise this tool for private projects.At the core of this tool is the desire to create a fact based summary of wind potential in South Africa, combin- ing sound mathematical models, creative data science tech- niques and a user friendly interface. The importance of pro- viding factual data is especially true since South Africa is in the transition to renewables as a significant energy source.
Windfarm Deployment
Dashboard