Siting - Wind Energy: Renewable Energy and the Environment - page 195

4. Is there a small wind turbine in your region? If yes, what is the visual impact from the
neighbor's view and from the public view? Use Tables 9.1 and 9.2 to estimate score.
5. Use Equation 9.1. Calculate the corrected power for a class 3 wind area if the terrain
exposure is 80 m and area is grassland. Use the bottom and middle values for class 3.
6. Estimate the annual energy production for a 50 MW wind plant where the average wind
power potential is 500 W/m 2 at 50 m height. Select the size of turbine from commercial
turbines available today.
7. Do problem 6; however, now the land is high priced, so select close spacing and estimate
array losses.
8. What size of land area do you need to lease for a 50 MW wind farm? Select the size of
turbine from commercial turbines available today and the spacing. Remember, if your
spacing between turbines is too close, you will have array losses. How may megawatts
can you install per square kilometer?
9. The array spacing is 4D by 8D, for 3 MW wind turbines, 90 m diameter. How many can
be placed in a square kilometer?
10. The row spacing is 2D for 3 MW wind turbines, 90 m diameter. How many can be placed
per linear kilometer on a ridge?
11. Assume you have complex terrain. What size of land area do you need to lease for a
50 MW wind farm? You select the size of turbine from commercial turbines available
today and the spacing. How may megawatts can you install per square kilometer?
12. In your opinion, what are some advantages and disadvantages of using vector or raster-
based GIS in determining wind energy potential?
13. Check out two of the links on numerical models and see if they have any examples of wind
maps. List website chosen, geographical region of wind map, and resolution of wind map.
14. For the White Deer wind farm ( Figure 9.11 ) , what is the land area allocated for each tur-
bine? How many turbines can be placed in a square kilometer?
15. For the White Deer wind farm (Figure 9.11), if the roads are 7 m wide, estimate the
amount of land taken out of production for the wind turbines within the square mile of
Figure 9.11. Do not forget the space between each wind turbine.
16. Go to Flash Earth, www.lashearth.com , and search for White Deer, Texas (latitude, N
35°27'; longitude, W 101°10'). The wind farm is just to the northwest of the town. Zoom
in to see the layout of the wind farm. Estimate approximate number of wind turbines per
square mile for the wind farm. Remember, not all the land will have wind turbines on it
within the area of wind farm.
17. Go to Flash Earth, www.lashearth.com , and search for the wind farms in San Gorginia
Pass, California, just northwest of Palm Springs. Estimate the spacing for one of the
densely packed wind farms.
18. How many met stations, at what height, and at what time period are needed for deter-
mining the wind potential for a 50 MW wind farm or larger? In general, terrain will not
be completely flat. Also remember, wind turbines are getting larger, which means hub
heights are larger. For your selection of number, height, instrumentation, and time period,
estimate the costs.
19. Go to www.remss.com and look at QSCAT data for area off of Cape Cod and month of
September 2007. Choose region “Atlantic, Tropical, North.” What is the average wind
speed and from what direction?
20. In the preliminary data collection for a wind farm, for how long should data be collected if:
a. No regional data are available
b. Good regional data are available.
c. There are other wind farms in the area.
21. Go to www.topozone.com . Find quadrangle map that shows Mesa Redonda, New Mexico.
It is in Quay County. What is the elevation of the mesa? You can see all of Mesa in