Key factors influencing urban wind energy: A case study from the Dominican Republic

This article presents the urban wind potential that exists in the provinces of the Dominican Republic through free access data provided by numerical weather prediction and geographical information systems. Then, a hybrid Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) - Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis was conducted to qualitatively determine the factors that influence urban wind energy, and the weighting of these through expert judgments, quantifying the prioritized factors. The results show that the average consolidated urban wind speed is 3.66 m/s at 10 m height, and the predominant direction is 86 degrees. Adopting the parameters of the Weibull distribution, an Annual Energy Production (AEP) of 1,145 kWh/y is estimated for one small wind turbine. Assuming that ten 2-blade Darrieus H-type vertical axis wind turbines are installed in each province, the global AEP is 423,936 kWh/y. Applying the hybrid analysis with the combination of the factors, the results indicate that the strengths and opportunities represent 0.693 and the weaknesses and threats are 0.307. The most important SWOT factors of each category were i) low emission of greenhouse gasses (internal), ii) low energy sale price of surplus energy to the grid (internal), iii) use of public policies (external) and iv) bureaucracy and slow processes in public companies related to permits (external).