Modeling tidal current speed using a Wakeby distribution

• A Wakeby distribution is presented to model tidal current speed.
• The Wakeby distribution and nine other popular distributions are investigated.
• Comparisons are conducted using the K–S test and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) index.
• The Wakeby distribution is the only one of the ten selected distributions that passed the K–S test.

Considerable interest in tidal power is being driven by the global push for renewable energy. The first step in modeling tidal energy sources in power systems analysis is to determine an appropriate probability distribution for tidal current. This paper proposes a Wakeby distribution to model the probabilistic characteristics of tidal current speed. The Wakeby distribution and nine other popular distributions are investigated using four years of tidal current speed data at ten different sites. Comparisons are conducted using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test (K–S test) and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) index for both posteriori and priori tests. The results verified that the Wakeby distribution not only has the best statistical performance but also is the only one of the ten selected distributions that passed the K–S test.