Wind resource assessment for urban renewable energy application in Singapore

In highly urbanized and energy intensive countries like Singapore all possible avenues for power generation need attention. In this context, rooftop installations of both solar and wind energy are of particular interest for Singapore, especially because of Singapore's condition of land limitation. Decentralized and distributed energy sources such as rooftop wind and solar installations have numerous advantages. However, the potential for wind energy is not fully understood in built-up areas and thus not fully exploited. Hence it is important to study wind flow patterns in built-up areas and also develop technologies tuned for these conditions. The demand for technologies that deliver energy for low flow wind conditions is of paramount importance to Southeast Asia region and especially to Singapore. In this paper, two measurement systems, namely stationary rooftop wind mast and mobile Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) profiler, have been discussed. Measured wind data from various sites across Singapore using have also been presented. Wind roses, Weibull distribution, roughness lengths and other statistical analyses were carried out to understand the prevailing wind characteristic, which is used for evolving the basic criteria for economic viability of roof top wind turbines in the tropical conditions of Singapore.