Off-shore Wind Energy Potential Research for Antakya Bay

Öz

In this study, the key factors associated with Off-shore wind energy have been examined with the aim of assessing off-shore wind-energy potential in Antakya. Currently, there are no nationally-agreed procedures and practices on how to construct off-shore wind farms or how to conduct feasibility study as there is no installed off-shore wind farm in the boundaries of Turkey. To that end, this paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of off-shore wind power plants and introduces a case study for planning, designing and implementing wind turbines on Antakya bay, Turkey. A software package called Wind Atlas Analysis and Application Program (WAsP), which is a standard tool in wind energy industry, was used in the case study for analysing and modelling wind climate in the studied area. The outputs of WAsP were created based on quantitative wind data (e.g., hourly wind speed and direction) recorded at Samadağ meteorological station between 2013-2015. A geographic information program called Global Mapper was employed for advanced analysis and turbine placement by means of converting topographic maps of selected areas into vector format. Additionally, roughness measurements and information on the presence of obstacles in the surrounding environment were entered to the software in order to reduce the error rate. Based on the estimations and outputs of WAsP software package, cost-benefit analysis was conducted to examine whether it is economically feasible to install wind energy turbines in Antakya. The results showed that the break-even point comes in 6.6 operational years, which lead to the conclusion that the placement of off-shore wind energy turbines is economically wise. Moreover, it was concluded in case study that the installation of wind energy farm in Antakya bay is also favorable in terms of wind power density of this region.