AN EVALUATION OF THE WIND ENERGY POTENTIAL IN AREAS OF INTEREST IN ALBANIA USING WIND-ATLAS-BALKAN DATA

Wind energy technology implementation has reached new levels of a remarkable growth. There is also an increased interest for wind energy even in countries that lack long term wind speed measurement data. Such, it becomes a necessity to assess the wind energy potential in areas where is no measured wind speed data. In this study wind energy potential for 7 sites in Albania preliminary proposed and licensed for developing wind farms, but lacking measured wind speed data, was assessed based on Balkan Wind Atlas data. Site power prediction was developed with WAsP program. The reliability of the Wind Atlas data was evaluated by comparing with the on-site data measurements for the area of Mamaj, Tepelen. All the sites were characterized as class 2,3 and 4 wind category, with power density up to 464W/m(2).