Study on the feasibility of wind turbine farm
in Zaouiet Kounta, Algeria.
Dahmani Aissa a,b
(a)
Department of Electrical Engineering,
University of Batna, Algeria.
(b)
M'sila gas turbine power plant BP 203 M4sila, Algeria.
aissa.dahman@gmail.com
Abstract – The Algerian government is intending to install a
huge capacity of electric generation from renewable resources.
The objective is to reach in 2030, an amount of 40% of the total
production is the part of renewable energy. South-west Algeria
has an interesting wind potential. Keberten, Adrar was installed a
wind form of 10 MW. This paper presents the opportunity of
installing a new wind farm in Zaouiet-Kounta. In order to
optimize the matching between wind regime and wind turbine
characteristics, concept of turbine performance index and
capacity factor were investigated. . Eight wind turbines were
studied. The best capacity factor (0.5408) is obtained for the
maximum turbine performance index (0.3168). Cost analysis
shows that the lowest cost of energy is 0.0229 €/kWh while the
highest is 0.0409 €/kW.
Index Terms – turbine performance index, capacity factor, site
matching, LCOE..
I. INTRODUCTION
Wind energy is a promising alternative to pollutant micro-
power plants in southern Algeria. Electric energy is provided
by Diesel generators, although the tendency is their
replacement by gas turbines. Even, the huge wind potential
offered, it is still not exploited. In fact, the enormous solar
potential shadowed the windy one. Due to its low potential the
wind energy share will be around 3% of electricity production
in 2030 [1]. Till now, only Kebeterne wind farm is installed.
Several studies have been held to demonstrate the
opportunities offered by wind energy. Evaluation of wind
energy and economics evaluation was conducted in [2].
Authors aimed to select a site among five others to install a
wind farm (18MW). In [3], an investigation on wind energy
generation feasibility is demonstrated for Aoulef region,
Adrar. The effect of both grid connection and the internal rate
of return are analyzed. The assessment of both technical and
economical wind farm is explained in [4]. The best cost of
electricity by Kwh for the variety of wind turbines was
0.040$/Kwh. A competitive price compared to the one paid by
the Algerian consumer. The first Algerian wind farm is
installed at kaberten, however it is demonstrated in [5] that
Zouia Kounta is more suitable because of the net electrical
production and full load hours (40 Gwh and 4040 hrs
respectively).
In this paper, a case study on the feasibility of wind farm in
Zaouiet Kounta, southern Algeria is presented. A selection of
Rachid Abdessemeda
(a)
Department of Electrical Engineering
University of Batna, Algeria.
rachid.abdessemed@gmail.com
wind turbines is conducted based on matching wind turbine
parameters namely vC , vR and v f : cut-in, rated and furling or
cut-off speeds respectively, to specific site data. The goal is to
maximize the energy produced by the wind turbine.
II. SITE PRESENTATION
Zaouiet Kounta (Latitude 27°13', longitude 0° 12'), is
located 77 Kms south of Adrar. The local electric demand was
fed essentially by diesel generator. Sonelgaz, the electric
company adopted a new policy substituting the pollutant
generators by gas turbines. A mobile power plant, consisting
of 6 mobile gas turbines, 22 MW each, was installed in 2014.
Next, 34 Mw was added to the previous capacity in 2015. The
hybridization of power generation is assured by installing a
photovoltaic power station of 6MW in 2014. The annual
radiation on latitude angle is 3524.92 Kwh/m². The sunshine
duration is 3428 Hours per year.
Based on Weibull probability density function, wind power
density is estimated using the following equation:
Pdisp 1 3  3
 c 1   (1)
A 2  k
A: is the swept area (m²), ρ: is the air density (Kg/m3), Γ: is the
gamma function, c (m/sec) and k scale and shape factors
respectively. For Zaouiet Kounta, they are equal to: 10.3 m/sec
and 2.69 [5]. Wind power density: Ppdw = 745.4 W/m2.
III. WIND TURBINE NORMALIZED CURVE.
The average electrical power of wind generator is [6]:
pe,ave  peR CF 
(2)
Where pe ,ave is the rated output power at rated speed given
by [6]:
peR  0.5C pRmR gR AvR3 (3)
P Wind Turbine (Cp) Transmission Generator
mecη ηg
 Fig. 2 shows the normalized capacity factor (CF) and
Fig. 1 Block Diagram of Wind Electric System. [7]. normalized power PN for Zaouiet Kounta site. The CF 
reaches its maximum at normalized speed of 0.7 while the PN
Where: attains its maximum at a normalized speed equal to 2. Based
C pR Coefficient of performance at rated speed, on, choosing the rated speed giving the maximum CF  leads
to lose too much energy by the turbine under higher wind
 mR and  gR mechanical interface and generators speeds. On the other hand, choosing the rated giving maximum
efficiencies respectively. of PN will result in loosing too much energy at lower speeds.
Costs of necessary generator, circuit breaker, transformer… in
CF the capacity factor, expressed for the cubic model the 2nd case will increase. Meanwhile, because of the lower
by[8]: value of CF  they will be misused.

 vC 
3
 v  k   v 
k
 1.4
Normalized power and capacity factor (p=0.259 and q=1.592)

CF    exp   C    exp   f   Capacity Factor

Capacity factor and Normalized Power

 c  
Normalized Power

 vR   c  
1.2

3
0.8

3   
 k  .   vR  , 3      vC  , 3 
k k 0.6

+     (4)
 vR     c  k    c  k 
0.4
k

k 
0.2

 c  0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Normalized Rated Speed (Vr/c)

 the incomplete gamma function.

Fig. 2 Normalized power and capacity factor.
The cut-in and cut-off speeds are expressed as a function of From Fig. 2 it is clear that an increasing in PN is associated
rated speed: vC  p.vR and v f  q.vR . Where: p  1 a decreasing in (CF ) and vice-versa. But it is expected that
and q  1 . A survey of more than 120 available wind turbines exist a value of normalized speed at which the product of
with different rated power and different wind turbine speed (CF * PN ) is maximum. At this value of ( vR c ) this product
parameters from different manufacturers demonstrate that falls between PN ,max and CFmax . At this point, the energy
0.252  p  0.266 and 1.906  q  1.998 . These
produced is closer to its maximum at a higher CF  [6]. An
results are obtained with a very good confidence (95%) [9].
vR c ) at which
alternative design procedure is to use (
By substitution, the capacity factor can be expressed
normalized power is some per cent of PNmax i.e. r* PNmax
entirely in terms of normalized speed ( vR c ) and Weibull
where 0.5  r  1 [10].
shape factor k :
Based on, the normalized turbine performance index is
 v 
k
  v 
k
 defined as:
CF   p  exp   p R    exp   q R 
3

 c    c   TPI 
PN .CF
(7)
PN ,max * CFmax
3
3   
k    vR  3    vR  3 
k k Fig. 3 shows the turbine performance index (TPI). The
 .    ,   p  , 
k 
+ (5) (TPI) attains the maximum of 0.2927 at the normalized speed
 vR     c  k    c  k  of 1.1. The capacity factor value is 0.5408. Knowing c the
k 
 c  scale factor, p and q the cut-in, rated and furling speeds are
summarized in table 1. It can be seen that as r decrease, all the
To express the power in terms of normalized speed, we
define the normalized average power as : parameters: vC , vR and v f decrease also.

0.5C pRmR gR AvR3 CF  v 

3

PN   CF  R  (6)
0.5C pR mR gR Ac 3  c 
 0.35 highest TPI surpassing 0.3 (0.3168 and 0.3048 respectively).
Turbine Performance Index (TSI)
0.3
These values are obtained for the same value of the normalized
speed. It is noticed that these two turbines have quite the same
0.25
capacity factor (0.5408 and 0.5402). Compared to results in
0.2
table 2, the TPI's are equal in both cases. Speed parameters of
0.15 T4 are closer to those in table 2 than T2 ones. Nevertheless,
0.1
T2 is chosen because of both its lowest cut-in speed and its
0.05
highest cut-off speed. Indeed wind turbine must contain
enough power at cut-in speed to overcome all the system loses.
0 3
0 0.5 1 1.5
Normalized Rated Speed (vr/c)
2 2.5 3
Loses are fraction of vC . The highest value of v f , means that
Fig. 3 Turbine Performance Index. the wind turbine will run much time at the rated power. T3 has
both the lowest TPI and CF (0.1976 and 0.4523)
Wind turbine parameters are calculated and summarized in
table 1. Hence, it is possible to investigate the commercially Table 3: Performance of selected wind turbines..
available turbines that their characteristics correspond to those
in able 1. It is noticeable that is impossible to manufacture TPI CF r (m/s)
turbine that corresponds exactly to each site wind regime. T1 0.2366 0.4653 0.7708
T2 0.3168 0.5408 0.6835
T3 0.1976 0.4523 0.744
Table 1: Wind turbine speed parameters T4 0.3048 0.5402 0.6946
T5 0.2543 0.4682 0.7749
Wind Turbine Speed Parameters (p=0.259 and q=1.925) T6 0.2482 0.533 0.7801
T7 0.2896 0.5391 0.7065
Parameters At At r=0.9 r=0.8 r=0.7 r=0.5 T8 0.2972 0.5402 0.6928
TPImax PNmax
1.100 2.00 1.40 1.30 1.20 1.00
11.33 20.6 14.42 13.39 12.36 10.3 IV. 1 COST ANALYSIS:
2.930 5.34 3.73 3.47 3.2 2.67
21.81 39.66 27.76 25.79 23.79 19?83 The viability of any power plant depends on its ability to
PN 0.719 0.949 0.944 0.887 0.811 0.611 generate energy at the low operating cost [11]. The cost of
CF 0.5402 0.1303 0.344 0.403 0.469 0.611 generated electricity for a wind turbine depends on several
factors which include: the site specific factors; cost of wind
turbine, and its economic life span; operating and maintenance
IV. CASE STUDY costs; electricity tariff and incentives and exemptions [12].
The cost of wind turbine is generally 74% of the total project
Eight wind turbines are considered in this study. For cost and is determined as follows:
uniformity in the comparison, these turbines have the same
rated power (2000Kw). These turbines are denoted T1…..T8,
Cwt  CspePR (8)
to avoid the use of trade names. Characteristics of the eight
turbines are summarized in table 2. The cut-in speed ranges According to [13], the specific costs are given in terms of
from 2m/s to 4m/s. rated speed varies between 10m/s and minimum and maximum prices for 2015 and 2030.
16m/s. the cut-off speed varies between 28 m/s and 20m/s.
Table 4. Initial costs.[13]
Table 2: Wind turbine characteristics.
€/kW Onshore wind turbine
Min/Max 2015 1000/1800
vC (m/s) vR (m/s) vf (m/s) Min/Max 2030 950/1700
T1 4 16 25
T2 2 13 28 The initial investment cost (IC) is the sum of costs of
T3 3 15 21 different components. The investment is given as [2]:
T4 3.5 12 25
T5 3 12 20 I C  Cwt  Cst  Cen  Cci  Ctr  Cel  Cmisc . (9)
T6 3.5 12.5 25 Where Cwt is the cost of the wind turbine, Cstis the study cost,
T7 3.5 10 20
T8 4 14 23
Cen the engineering cost, Cci is the civil work and installation
cost, Ctr is cost of transport, Cel is cost of electricity
Computations are done for each turbine. The normalized connection, Cmisc is miscellaneous cost.
speed is varied from 0 to 3 in interval of 0.1. Capacity factor The unit cost of energy using levelized cost of energy (LCOE)
and performance index are calculated for each step. Results are can be estimated using equation (10):
summarized in table 3. It is found that T2 d T4 have the
LCOE 
CRF
I C  Comesc   Cost/kWh (10)
EWT
Where EWT is the annual energy output of the turbine in
kilowatt hour, CRF and Com(esc) are the capital recovery factor
and present worth of the annual cost throughout the lifetime of
WT, and are expressed as:
CRF 
1  r n r (11)
1  r n  1
Com   1  eom  
n
(12)
Comesc   1    
r _ eom   1  r  
Where Com , eom , n, r, are the operation and maintenance cost
for the first year, escalation rate of operation and maintenance
costs, useful lifetime of turbine and discount rate, respectively.
For the case study the following assumptions are taken into
consideration:
1. Inflation rate was taken 12%
2. Interest rate was taken as 8%
3. The life time is considered to be 20 year.
4. Maintenance cost cannot be calculated in a straight
forward manner as they are not fixed, however it has
been reported that the annual operation and
maintenance costs vary from 1% to 7% of the initial
cost and 2% to 16% of the wind turbine cost. In this
study O&M cost is assumed to be 7% of the initial
cost of the turbine installation system (System price
/lifetime)
According to cost analysis represented in Fig. 4 it is seen
that for 2030:
 T2 has the best expected best cost per kWh. This cost
varies between minimum of 0.0229 €/kWh and a
maximum of 0.0409 €/kWh.
 T3 has the highest expected cost per kWh. This cost
lies between 0.0273 €/kWh and 0.0489 €/kWh.
 The best mean value of LCOE is: 3.19 ct€/kWh. For
comparison, it is reported in [15] that best bid
recorded in Morocco was as low as 2.2ct €/kWh.
Fig. 4 Minimum and maximum LCOE expected for 2030
V. CONCLUSION.
This paper has presented he opportunity has offers wind
potential in Zaouiet Kounta. The analysis based on optimum
matching of site wind regime and turbine characteristics lead
to the best turbine performance index (TPI) which leads in turn
to the optimum capacity factor. Eight turbines with the rated
power but with different parameters were investigated. Cost
analysis was carried out. The best LCOE ranges between
0.0229 €/kWh and 0.0409 €/kWh according to the minimum
and maximum specific turbine costs.
The huge program adopted by the Algerian government
intends to export 10000MW to Europe. This energy has to be
competitive in term of LCOE. This paper demonstrates that it
is possible to reach this objective.
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