WER-4: Wind characteristics for the western part of Kansas
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Abstract
The Kansas stations show power densities of from 175 to 200 W/m2 at a height of 25 ft. Using the 3/7 power law, a 200 W/m2 power density would increase to 360 W/m2 at a height of 100 ft and to 490 W/mZ at 200 ft. There appears to be an increase in power toward the southwestern corner of the state. Confirming this is the very high power density at Dalhart, Texas of 337 W/m at an assumed 25 ft which scales to an extremely high 820 W/m2 at 200 ft. However, the Dalhart data cannot be considered reliable since little is known about the station and data is available over only a five year period. It does seem reasonable to assume that power densities of at least 500 W/m2 at a 200 ft height are available in the southwestern part of the state. It is possible that areas exist with even higher power densities and it is almost certain that there will be individual sites with higher energies available, since the NWS station locations are not usually selected with high wind velocities as a consideration. The Kansas stations and Dalhart show energy direction distributions dominated by winds from the south and north and it seems clear that siting should consider enhancing the winds from these two directions. The La Junta, Colorado wind distribution differs considerably from the other stations, presumably because it is further west. It is not known if a sudden change in wind characteristics occurs with western movement or whether the change is gradual, but it seems evident from this data and from other publishes data that the wind energy decreases in Colorado when compared with that available in the western half of Kansas. Further investigation will consider the study area in more detail. An effort will be made to determine if there are areas with considerably higher wind energies than those at the stations considered here and to locate individual sites with higher energies. A search will be made for more wind data in the southwestern part of the state and an attempt will be made to select individual sites from maps of the area. A measurement program may then need to be undertaken; the necessity for measurements will probably depend on the amount of existing data which can be located.