A statistical investigation on wind energy potential of Northwest of Turkey

The northwest of Turkey is an important region which is a rapidly developing industrial center. Thus, energy analysis of this region has a high importance for the region's geopolitical, economic and demographic structure. In this study, wind energy potential of three regions in northwest of Turkey is evaluated using wind speed data collected from three stations. The Weibull, Rayleigh and generalized Gamma distributions are used for modeling wind speed data and estimating wind power. It is concluded from analyses that one of the mentioned regions has moderate level wind power potential which can be adequate for mechanical energy applications such as local consumption, agricultural applications and water pumping, other two regions are fairly good locations in terms of wind generation potential.