Wind atlas of Chanthaburi and Trat provinces, Thailand

The Ministry of Energy of Thailand has established a target of wind energy production of 1,800MW in 2021; currently, there are only 222.71MW (12.4%) generated. Therefore, determining the optimal regions for wind farm construct to increase the capacity of wind energy production is required. An economical solution method is to apply numerical simulations of computational fluid and dynamic (CFD) techniques on specific regions. This paper presents wind simulations for a high-resolution wind atlas of Chanthaburi and Trat as a case study. The resolution of the simulations can resolve mesoscale and microscale characteristics using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) techniques. The wind data were derived from MERRA for a period of 5 years. The highest resolution is 200 meters (m) in the represented area, where the potential for wind power generation is determined by using nest techniques. The results are compared with the actual observed average wind speeds from local wind stations. The simulation results demonstrate that areas located between 40-100m above the ground have the potential to generate electricity. Three potential areas with average wind speeds of over 6 m/s are proposed; (1) Kao-Soy Dao; (2) The area between Muang Chanthaburi and Muang Khlung; (3) Chang Island.