Avaliação do potencial eólico no Estado da Paraíba: um estudo observacional e numérico.

Abstract

In this work is to describe the wind power density for five sites in the State of Paraiba, as well as to access the ability of the mesoscale atmospheric model Developments on the Brazilian Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (BRAMS) in describing the intensity of wind in São Gonçalo Monteiro, Patos, Campina Grande, João Pessoa. Observational data are wind speed and direction at 10 m from the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET). The data cover the period from January 1977 to December 1981. For this, it was extrapolated the wind to the heights of 50 m, 80 m and 120 m and estimated the Weibull distribution parameters as well. We concluded that the prevailing wind direction in the five sites is easterly, with variations between northeasterly and southeasterly. We also found that the year 1977 had the lowest values of wind power density, while 1981 had the highest values. In the sequence, we used the numerical model BRAMS in simulations for four different months characteristic of different wind regime in those years. We run the model for rainy months: March and April, and for September and October, the dry season. We found that all the sites present a reasonable wind power. Higher values are found in Campina Grande, with good results in power density, while São Gonçalo showed the lowest values. It also concluded that the BRAMS model is able to satisfactorily reproduce the monthly cycle of the wind regimes considered, as well as the main direction. However the model tends to underestimated the wind speed, mainly for the dry season.