A reference database for wind and solar potential is established for 16 sites in Texas and 1 site in New Mexico. Twelve sites have 5 years of data. Two years of data were taken at three sites because of low wind potential, and Corpus Christi was installed on land owned by the General Land Office in July 1999. Wind developers are funding continuous data collection at five sites and the Alternative Energy Institute is maintaining the Amarillo site.
All sites show the same seasonal trend, with high winds in the spring
and low winds in July and August. Graphs of wind power at 50 m, by region,
are the average month values over the period. Guadalupe Pass is a class
6 site, however there is essentially no wind shear. The High Plains was
the next best region with class 4 wind power. The Mid Plains were all class
2, which shows that the class 3 area is not as large as depicted by the
national wind power map developed by The National Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL). Also the land/sea breezes do not extend as far inland as shown
on the NREL map. An unexpected trend in the Rio Grande Valley is the continuation
of 300 W/m2 through July with the low month being September.
Annual wind shear values ranged from to 0.15 to 0.36, except for Huceo
Mountains and Guadalupe Pass where the values were 0.08 and 0.02, respectively.
In general the wind shear from 10-40 m and 25-40 m were similar on an annual
basis, although there were some differences by month and season Windpower
at 50 m is greater than predicted from 10 m heights using the conventional
0.14 value.
Monthly data are presented in Appendix 3 for wind power at 10, 25, 40
and 50 m, wind direction, solar power (horizontal and vertical), and wind
shear exponents for each site. Graphs of wind and solar power and an indication
of flagged data are also given on the spreadsheets. For those sites with
no anemometers at 50 m, wind power at 50 m was calculated from the 40 m
data using the wind shear from 25 to 40 m.
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