Performance analysis of 30 MW wind power plant in an operation mode in Nouakchott, Mauritania

Abstract

In this paper, the performance analysis of a 30 MW wind power plant is performed. The farm consists of fifteen (T1-T15) G9 7/2000/GAMESA 2 MW grid-connected turbines. The farm is in operation mode installed 28 km south of Nouakchott city in Mauritania. The analyzed data are monitored from July 1st, 2015 (the first operation day of the power plant) to December 31st, 2019. The parameters of performance evaluation are power generation, capacity factor, machine availability, grid availability, and system availability. It is observed from data analysis, the wind farm supplies a total energy of 507.39 GWh to the power grid and have a high average capacity factor of 42.55%. T1 produces the highest amount of electrical energy among the other turbines with a total energy output of 35.46 GWh, an average capacity factor of 44.97%, and operating hours of 33,814 hours. While T12 produced the minimum amount of energy in this period, the difference in energy compared to T1 is 4.563 GWh. It is observed that the availability of the network is unstable and needs improvement, varying between 90.86% in 2016 and 93.16% in 2018. In the first year of operation, 97.06% of the turbines were available. However, the average availability of the wind farm is approximately 94% during the total study period.