Determining the Optimized Hub Height of Wind Turbine Using the Wind Resource Map of South Korea.

Although the size of the wind turbine has become larger to improve the economic feasibility of wind power generation, whether increases in rotor diameter and hub height always lead to the optimization of energy cost remains to be seen. This paper proposes an algorithm that calculates the optimized hub height to minimize the cost of energy (COE) using the regional wind profile database. The optimized hub height was determined by identifying the minimum COE after calculating the annual energy production (AEP) and cost increase, according to hub height increase, by using the wind profiles of the wind resource map in South Korea and drawing the COE curve. The optimized hub altitude was calculated as 75~80 m in the inland plain but as 60~70 m in onshore or mountain sites, where the wind profile at the lower layer from the hub height showed relatively strong wind speed than that in inland plain. The AEP loss due to the decrease in hub height was compensated for by increasing the rotor diameter, in which case COE also decreased in the entire region of South Korea. The proposed algorithm of identifying the optimized hub height is expected to serve as a good guideline when determining the hub height according to different geographic regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]