Mesoscale Analyses of Wind Power in the Western Part of Iraq

Temporal and spatial analyses were conducted to study the feasibility of using wind power in Anbar Governorate, the western part of Iraq, and to investigate the capacity of wind turbines as supportive power resources in the area. The study targeted four regions according to social, spatial, and security criteria. Mesoscale analyses were applied to investigate the wind patterns and the different factors that can impact wind power generation. The relative frequencies of wind directions showed that the north and north-western winds were the most prevalent. The temporal data showed slight variation on annual and diurnal intervals. This variation was also observed in the spatial profiles. The wind speed data and the prevalence of wind direction may offer a promising chance for a wind farm in the study region. Wind speed data probability density of distribution was also conducted through different distribution tests. The results showed that gamma and log-normal distributions are a better fit with wind speed than the Weibull distribution, which was rejected by the A-D goodness test at a p-value < 0.1.