Feasibility Study of Wind Power Generation in Bangladesh: A Statistical Study in the Perspective of Wind Power Density and Plant Capacity Factor

Abstract

Bangladesh has a projected electricity demand of 10283 MW by the end of the year 2015. Despite having huge coastline and relatively large area only 100 MW of that huge demand is projected to come from wind power sources. Bulk of this generation is planned to be deployed in the coastal area and adjacent islands. But there are other places of interest for wind power generation, which could be a good means for solving the huge power crisis in Bangladesh. In this paper, feasibility of different scale of wind power generation in 35 different places is studied in the perspective of Wind Power Density (WPD) and Plant Capacity Factor (PCF) at different turbine heights. Only 5 of those sites attain power class 2 or more at 50m height and 17 of them are projected to achieve a PCF of 20% or greater for micro scale generation.  At 120m height only 5 sites are projected to attain a much larger WPD and achieve a power class of 2 or more and remaining 30 places still belong to power class 1. Feasibility of deploying large scale wind turbine at Chittagong and Jessore, medium scale at Khepupara, and small scale at Cox’s Bazar and Hatiya is studied. All 5 sites attain a PCF of 26% or more which reinforces the feasibility of deploying different scale of wind turbine at those sites.