IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 24, NO.

2, JUNE 2009 459

Estimation of Energy Yield From Wind Farms Using
Articial Neural Networks
M. Carolin Mabel and E. Fernandez
AbstractThis paper uses the data from seven wind farms at
Muppandal, Tamil Nadu, India, collectedfor three years fromApril
2002 to March 2005 for the estimation of energy yield from wind
farms. The model is developed with the help of neural network
methodology, and it involves three input variableswind speed,
relative humidity, and generation hoursand one output variable,
which give the energy output from wind farms. The modeling is
done using MATLAB software. The most appropriate neural net-
work conguration after trial and error is found to be 3-5-1 (3
input layer neurons, 5 hidden layer neurons, 1 output layer neu-
ron). The mean square error for the estimated values with respect
to the measured data is 7.6 10
3
. The results demonstrate that
this work is an efcient energy yield estimation tool for wind farms.
Index TermsArticial neural networks, MATLAB software,
modeling, wind energy estimation.
I. INTRODUCTION
E
STIMATION of wind power generation can be consid-
ered as a more efcient way to increase the wind energy
penetration. While conventional power plants produce a con-
stant power output, the output of a wind power plant uctuates.
In order to successfully integrate wind energy with traditional
power generation, it is necessary to have the ability to forecast
the available energy yield of a wind farm for a given period.
Accurate forecasts of wind energy resources are critical for eco-
nomic viability, system reliability, scheduling, and long-range
planning [1]. The estimation of wind power generation is gen-
erally comprised of several modeling techniques that combine
meteorological and historical generation data [2][4]. In order
to achieve the highest possible accuracy, the methods should
also incorporate appropriate parameter and data.
The level of energy generated by wind turbines is related to
different factors such as wind velocity, wind direction, air den-
sity, seasons of a year, time of a day, etc. [2]. Since these input
variables keep on changing over time, the output of wind tur-
bine also changes. Also, other technical constraints such as grid
unavailability and turbine breakdown cause limitations to wind
energy production. As wind energy makes signicant penetra-
tion into electric grids in various places around the world, the
need for accurate prediction of available wind electric potential
for a variety of time scale is increasing in importance [5], [6],
which, in turn, also helps to overcome the perceived barrier of
wind intermittence and unpredictability [7].
Manuscript received July 12, 2006; revised February 4, 2008. First pub-
lished January 6, 2009; current version published May 19, 2009. Paper no.
TEC-00232-2006.
The authors are with the Indian Institute of Technology-Roorkee,
Roorkee 247667, India (e-mail: carolin_mabel@yahoo.co.in; eugfefee@iitr.
ernet.in).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TEC.2008.2001458
Several models have been emerged to estimate and predict
the power produced by wind turbines [8][12]. In literature,
articial intelligence techniques such as neural networks and
fuzzy logic are found to be more accurate compared with the
traditional statistical models [13], [14].
A wide variety of input variables can be used that are related
to weather at site, geography, and operational aspects. Tradi-
tional models use a single input parameter for estimation [15].
In the neural network approach, it is possible to incorporate
additional parameters. The variables such as 10-min averages
of wind velocity, its standard deviation, and wind direction are
used as input parameters for an articial neural network model
to forecast wind power generation [2], [5], [13], [14]. These
literatures give the forecasting of wind power generation for a
few hours ahead. The authors in [12] used input variables such
as longitude, latitude, altitude, and tower height to estimate the
overall wind energy potential of several regions of Turkey.
In this paper, the estimation of monthly energy yield from
wind farms is carried out taking into account the seasonal vari-
ations. This is useful in planning for energy demand and also
helps in computing net revenue expected. Also, the choices
of input variables that inuence the wind energy output are
considered carefully and take into account the seasonal vari-
ations. The implemented neural network approach has three
input variablesmonthly average wind speed, monthly aver-
age relative humidity, and monthly generation hours. The input
variables relative humidity and generation hours that have in-
uence on wind power are of more generalized nature, which
can be obtained for any location and nowhere considered in
neural-network-based wind energy studies.
This paper presents an energy yield assessment tool based on
neural networks. This tool can be used for two main purposes:
wind energy yield estimations for a given period and assessing
the suitability of a given location for developing a wind farm.
This model uses the unpublished collected eld data for a pe-
riod from April 2002 to March 2005 from seven wind farms
in Muppandal, Tamil Nadu, India, which is identied as a po-
tential region for wind power growth. The results show a good
agreement between the estimated and the measured values.
This paper is structured as follows. First, the wind power
generation is analyzed with the input variables in terms of actual
data. Second, the development, training, and validation of the
neural network model for the estimation of energy from wind
farms are discussed.
II. HARNESSING WIND POWER
Wind power generation is greatly inuenced by the meteo-
rological factors like wind speed and air density. The available
0885-8969/$25.00 2009 IEEE
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460 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 24, NO. 2, JUNE 2009
Fig. 1. Effect of monthly average wind speed on wind power generation.
power from the wind is given by
P =
1
2
AV
3
(1)
where is the air density in kilograms per cubic meter, A
is the swept area of wind turbine in square meters, and V is
the wind speed in meters per second. Of these two variables,
the wind speed has a signicant inuence, since the power
output varies with cubic value of wind speed. The variation
of air density during different period of a year and at dif-
ferent location is less compared with wind speed variation.
The wind turbine power production capacity is also affected
by other factors such as seasons of a year, diurnal variations,
etc.
The power output from the wind turbine is also governed by
the design features of wind turbine such as cut-in speedthe
minimum wind speed at which the wind turbine starts to deliver
useful power, rated wind speedthe wind speed at which the
rated power of the machine is reached, and cutout speedthe
maximumwind speed at which the machine is allowed to deliver
power [16].
Generally, the cut-in speed for the wind turbine is in the range
of 2.53.5 m/s and the cutout speed ranges from 20 to 25 m/s.
The rated power output is produced from wind turbines when
the wind speed is above rated wind speed of the machine (ap-
proximately 12 m/s). Fig. 1 shows the variation of the monthly
power generation (kilowatt-hours) per kilowatt installed capac-
ity with the monthly average wind speed. It can be noted that
the average capacity factor of wind farm uctuates from 0.24 at
7.65 m/s to 0.044 at 2.88 m/s.
III. ANALYSIS OF WIND ENERGY OUTPUT WITH ACTUAL DATA
The data are collected from seven wind farms covering 137
wind turbines with a total capacity of 37.225 MW, located in
Muppandal, Tamil Nadu, India, for a period from April 2002
to March 2005. The wind speed data are collected from two
different sources for this localityone through the India Me-
teorology Department, Chennai, India and other from the three
anemometer readings recorded from three wind turbine towers.
Fig. 2. Monthly average wind speeds measured at different heights obtained
from two different sources and their variations during the given period.
Fig. 3. Monthly average pressure and temperature variation.
Fig. 2 shows the variation in the wind speed magnitude in the
collected data but similarity in trend, which is due to the record-
ing position (height) of the instrument. For better estimation, the
data taken at hub height are used for modeling by transforming
the daily average wind speed to monthly average wind speed.
For the same period, the monthly energy generated, monthly
generation hours, and meteorological parametersmonthly
average pressure, temperature, and relative humidityare
noted.
A. Data Analysis
All the data collected for energy estimation are analyzed for
the existence of relation between the input and output param-
eters by correlation studies. The parameters include average
monthly wind speed, average monthly relative humidity, temper-
ature and pressure, and monthly generation hours. The parame-
ters monthly average temperature and monthly average pressure
have a lesser variation throughout the year, as seen from Fig. 3.
For this reason, these parameters are not considered for mod-
eling using neural networks even though these are related to
wind turbine power output. The monthly average wind speed
and the monthly generation hours have a good dependence on
the wind energy output with a correlation value of 0.8 and 0.7,
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MABEL AND FERNANDEZ: ESTIMATION OF ENERGY YIELD FROM WIND FARMS USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS 461
Fig. 4. Seasonal changes of monthly average wind speed during the given
period.
Fig. 5. Monthly average wind speed variation and its effects on energy gen-
eration during the given period.
respectively. The monthly average relative humidity has a less
dependence with the correlation value of 0.4.
B. Effect of Wind Speed on Wind Energy Output
The wind is the primary parameter, which has signicant
inuence on wind energy output. The correlation also gives a
strong dependence. Fig. 4 shows the pattern of wind speed varia-
tion for three consecutive years and the average over three years
is shown by a thick line. The average wind speed is high during
MayAugust and reaches a maximum of 7.65 m/s because of
southwest winds. During DecemberFebruary, the wind speed
again increases because of northeast winds. This variation of
monthly average wind speed and its effects on monthly energy
generation in kilowatthour is depicted in Fig. 5. Even though
wind speed plays a major role in power production, other factors
also have signicant inuence on the energy output. For exam-
ple, in November, the average wind speed is 5.1 m/s, where
the energy output is less compared to the month of October
where the wind speed is 4.58 m/s. This complex dependence
may be due to other factors such as wind turbine breakdown,
grid unavailability, and downtime for maintenance.
C. Effect of Relative Humidity on Wind Energy Output
The amount of water vapor in the air affects the density. Moist
air is less dense than dry air. As humidity increases, air density
Fig. 6. Monthly average relative humidity and its variation during the given
period.
decreases. The air density also depends on its temperature and
pressure. But, the monthly average temperature and pressure
variation is less in Muppandal, Tamil Nadu, India, where anal-
ysis is done. Fig. 6 shows the monthly variation of relative hu-
midity that is between 60% and 90%. However, it is found that
the average air density in this region is around unity, calculated
as
Air density = D

273.15
T

B 0.3783e
760

(2)
where D is the density of dry air at standard atmospheric tem-
perature (25

C) and pressure (100 kPa) (D = 1.168 kg/m
3
),
T is the absolute temperature in Kelvin, B is the barometric
pressure in torr, and e is the vapor pressure of the moist air in
torr. Therefore, it is important to include the effect of relative
humidity on the density of air, which, in turn, contributes in
generation of power in wind farms.
D. Effect of Generation Hours on Wind Energy Output
Wind speed variation is uncontrollable at any particular lo-
cality; however, the wind power generation hours is directly
governed by the design of wind turbine, especially the cut-
in speed and cutout speed of wind turbines. A lesser cut-in
speed and higher cutout speed signicantly improves the gen-
eration hours. Reduction in stoppage hours of wind turbine due
to controllable factors such as grid unavailability, mechanical
breakdown, scheduled maintenance, etc., improves the wind
power generation. Periodic maintenance of turbine and grid are
unavoidable and if done during off-seasonal period (when the
average wind speed is below the cut-in-speed) reduces energy
loss and increases the total energy generation of wind turbine.
Fig. 7 shows the monthly variation of generation hours. The
generation hours is calculated as
Generation hours
= Total number of hours in a month
(low wind hours + wind turbine maintenance hours
+ wind turbine breakdown hours
+ grid maintenance hours + grid breakdown hours).
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462 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 24, NO. 2, JUNE 2009
Fig. 7. Monthly average generation hours of the wind turbine and its variation
during the given period.
IV. NEURAL NETWORK FOR ENERGY YIELD ESTIMATION
A. Neural Network Training
A neural network can greatly reduce the complexity of using
more number of variables in the input. A feedforward network
with a backpropagation algorithm is implemented to develop
the required energy yield estimation model. The database is
constructed with all the three-year data from April 2002 to
March 2005. The whole set of data is divided into two parts
68% is used for training and 32% is used for the validation
of training results. Training is done in the batch mode [17].
Training patterns involved 170 observational sets of data and
validation datasets consist of 81 patterns that are not considered
for training. The number of neurons in the hidden layer and
the number of hidden layers are decided by trials, when the
network is able to arrive at the maximum possible prediction
accuracy. The performance index is given by the mean square
error.
This neural-network-based energy yield estimation is devel-
oped in MATLAB software. The input parameters to the neural
network consist of monthly average wind speed, monthly aver-
age relative humidity, and monthly generation hours. The net-
work output is the monthly energy yield. After number of trials
with different architectures, the suitable architecture is obtained
as 3-5-1 (3 neurons in input layer, 5 neurons in hidden layer,
and 1 neuron in output layer), and the activation function in the
hidden layer is chosen as the hyperbolic tangent function, which
is given as follows:
A =
e
n
e
n
e
n
+e
n
. (3)
This architecture gave the training output with 1101 epochs
and good representational accuracy.
B. Neural Network Performance
Table I shows the details of the neural network input and
output variables and their performance in training and testing.
TABLE I
DETAILS OF THE DEVELOPED NEURAL NETWORK MODEL
Fig. 8. Training performance of the neural network.
Initially, the neural network is not able to predict the output
to the required accuracy with the raw data. The reason is that,
during training of a neural network, the higher valued input
variables tend to suppress the inuence of smaller variables. To
overcome this problem, the neural networks have to be trained
with normalized data. The data are then scaled in the range
(0, 1) to minimize the effects of magnitude between input vari-
ables. This gave a signicant improvement in the prediction
accuracy.
Fig. 8 shows the training performance curve of the neural
network. The optimum architecture is taken as 3-5-1 by trial,
when the mean square error decreased gradually and became
stable, and the training and testing error produced satisfactory
results. The training error that is given by mean square error is
obtained as 6.7 10
3
representing a better accuracy.
Performance of trained network is assessed by two ways
rst, the estimated and the measured wind energy yield
output values are compared. Second, the mean square er-
ror of the estimated set of data and the percentage mean
square error with respect to the actual measurements are
computed.
Fig. 9 shows the plot for the estimated and actual measured
values of the tested pattern. The estimations are fairly close
to the corresponding actual measurements. The errors of the
estimated test patterns are displayed graphically by a histogram
in Fig. 10. The error has a typical Gaussian distribution about the
zero value. Outliers occur only at three points with a maximum
error beyond 20%. The value of the mean square error of tested
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MABEL AND FERNANDEZ: ESTIMATION OF ENERGY YIELD FROM WIND FARMS USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS 463
Fig. 9. Comparison between measured and estimated test patterns.
Fig. 10. Distribution of error of estimated test patterns.
pattern is 7.6 10
3
and the percentage mean square error is
computed as 1.6% with respect to the actual measurements. The
results show that a good and sufcient accuracy level is reached
using neural networks for estimation of energy yield from wind
farms.
V. CONCLUSION
The neural network model was developed for the estimation of
energy yield from wind farms by using the input parameters
average wind speed, relative humidity, and generation hours.
Generally, wind speed has direct inuence on power genera-
tion. High wind speed means high power generation. However,
the seasonal variation and diurnal variation of wind speed are
nature-dependent. The moist air is less dense than dry air be-
cause the large heavy oxygen and nitrogen molecules of dry
air are replaced by lighter water molecules. Therefore, as rela-
tive humidity increases, the air density decreases and, in turn,
may affect power generation. Generation hour is an important
parameter in wind power generation. It can be increased to
a certain extent to improve the wind power generation. Dur-
ing the off-seasonal period, generation hour is intermittent due
to high uctuation in the wind speed near the cut-in range
of the wind turbine. However, better generation hours can be
obtained during the seasonal period for better energy output
by reducing the downtime of the wind turbine by all possible
means.
An articial neural network is applied as an efcient tool to
estimate energy yield fromwind farms. The training algorithmis
based on the backpropagation technique and the optimumarchi-
tecture 3-5-1 gave the mean square value of 1.6% for the tested
data, with respect to the actual measurements. The results show
a good agreement between the estimated and the measured out-
put, and this model with the necessary input parameters proves
to be an efcient and valuable tool for the estimation of energy
yield from wind farms.
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464 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 24, NO. 2, JUNE 2009
M. CarolinMabel received the B.E. degree in electri-
cal and electronics engineering from Manonmaniam
Sundaranar University, Tamil Nadu, India, in 1994,
and the M.E. degree in power systems from Anna-
malai University, Tamil Nadu, in 1998.
She was a Lecturer at the Church of South India
(C.S.I.) Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu till June
2004. She is currently a Research Scholar in the De-
partment of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of
Technology-Roorkee, Roorkee, India. Her current re-
search interests include neural network applications,
wind energy studies, and power system economic dispatch.
E. Fernandez received the Postgraduate degree in
power systems engineering from Motilal Nehru Re-
gional Institute of Technology, Allahabad, India, in
1998, and the Ph.D. degree in energy planning from
the Indian Institute of Technology-Roorkee, Roorkee,
India, in 2004.
From 1986 to 1990, he was an Assistant Professor
in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty
of Engineering, University of Jodhpur, Rajasthan, In-
dia. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the De-
partment of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute
of Technology-Roorkee. His current research interests include renewable en-
ergy system, energy planning, small-scale electric power generation systems,
and grid-connected wind energy conversion systems. He has a number of re-
search publications in these areas in conferences and journals.
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