Synthesis of long-term hourly wind speed time series on the basis of European wind atlas data

Abstract A method for the synthesis of annual wind speed time series with a time resolution of 1 hour is presented. It is based upon statistical information on the wind climate given in the European Wind Atlas. The synthetic time series reproduce the monthly average daily time pattern of the site. The distribution of the synthetic wind speed data shows the correct mean value of the cubed wind speed. The site-specific variance of the wind speed and the power spectrum of the wind speed fluctuations are closely approximated. Results of time step simulations for small stand-alone wind energy systems using synthetic and measured data sets as input data show a close agreement.