A new wind atlas of Algeria
Figure 1 : Wind atlas of Algérie at 10 m from the ground by H. Daaou Nedjari, S.Kheder Haddouche, A.Balehouane et O.Guerri.
The CDER has just published a new wind atlas of Algeria based on hourly and tri-temporal wind speed data recorded over 10 consecutive years from 2004 to 2014 in 74 meteorological stations of the National Meteorological Office and 21 additional stations of neighboring countries. (Figure 1) [1].
Thanks to a more or less uniform geographical distribution between the South and the North, the new wind atlas at 10 m from the ground reflects changes in the estimate of the wind resource compared to previous atlases, particularly in the Sahara.
Thus, the site of In Salah displays an average speed of 6.4 m/s next to Adrar which records 6.3 m/s. The wilaya of Illizi, with a dozen stations shows speeds exceeding 5 m/s.
The Hassi R’Mel site has fairly high average speeds of up to 6.5 m/s.
In the North, several microclimates are also detected from west to east. In the Highlands in the extreme west, the region of Mecheria has a very interesting average speed of 5.6 m/s. A little further east, Tiaret and Djelfa have speeds of 5.6 m/s and 5.1 m/s respectively. M’Sila appears as a very interesting region with an average annual speed of 5.3 m/s.
It should be noted that some sites such as Ksar-Chellala, Bou Saada and Tebessa have a considerable rate of zero values (> 50%) which can considerably underestimate their potential.
In addition, although this preliminary atlas provides useful information for the quantification of existing potential, it remains insufficient for the choice of sites eligible for the establishment of wind farms. The exploration of optimum locations for wind farms that can provide a return on investment and provide competitive wind energy is accompanied by feasibility limits related in particular to the topography of the site and the availability of the electricity grid.
Figure 2: Superposition of wind speed maps, topography and electrical network for multi-criteria optimization using the GIS method
An optimization method (GIS-method) [2] based on the superposition of layers using geographical information systems (Figure 2) has made it possible to target the optimal sites in Algeria and to propose an installation strategy wind farms related to the national renewable energy program [1].
[1] H. Daaou Nedjari, S.Kheder Haddouche, A.Balehouane, O.Guerri ; Optimal windy sites in Algeria: potential and perspectives; Energy; in press ; 2018.
[2] R.V. Van Haaren, V. Fthenakis, GIS-based wind farm site selection using spatial multi-criteria analysis (SMCA): Evaluating the case for New York State. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 2011, V15, pp. 3332–3340.
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