Thursday, July 07, 2016

Statistical Modelling of Botswana’s Monthly Maximum Wind Speed using a Four-Parameter Kappa Distribution

 By Oliver Moses and Bhagabat Prasad Parida
Wind speed is an important factor in many sectors. For instance, it is an important parameter in the estimation of evapotranspiration for agricultural purposes (Valipour and Eslamian, 2014; Valipour, 2014a; 2014b; 2015a; 2015b; 2015c; 2015d). It is also an important factor for engineers in the construction industry, who use it to calculate wind uplift loads (Liu, 1991; Dyrbye and Hansen, 1997; Rosowsky and Cheng, 1999; Kumar and Stathopoulos, 2000; Zhou et al., 2002). 

In this study, Botswana's wind speed is being studied mainly for renewable energy applications (Chiodo, 2013; Mukhopadhyay et al., 2014). With the growing rate of urbanisation, Botswana’s urban clusters have recently been experiencing energy shortages. Therefore, it has become necessary to explore alternative,
environmentally friendly energy sources such as wind mills to meet localised demands.

No comments: