This paper presents the wind data analysis for five coastal locations of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, namely Dhahran, Yanbo, Al-Wajh, Jeddah, and Gizan. The data analysis utilized hourly mean values of wind speed and wind direction covering a period of almost 14 years between 1970 and 1983. The...

We present a comparison between models developed by the present authors and 16 other models for different geographical and varied meteorological conditions. The comparisons are made using the mean bias error (MBE), root mean square error (RMSE), mean percentage error (MPE), and mean absolute...

This study presents a PV–diesel hybrid power system with battery backup for a village being fed with diesel generated electricity to displace part of the diesel by solar. The hourly solar radiation data measured at the site along with PV modules mounted on fixed foundations, four generators of...

An attempt has been made, may be first time in Saudi Arabia, to utilize power of the wind for pumping the water for remotely located inhabitants not connected with national power grid. Small turbines of 1–10kW have been chosen in conjunction with Goulds 45J model water pumps to produce energy...

The present study aims at evaluating the performance of wind speed sensors installed at different heights on a 40m tall wind mast during a period of 33 months between July 01, 2006 and April 01, 2009. The performance has been evaluated by estimating the tower distortion factor (TDF), scatter...

The paper presents the performance evaluation analysis of a 5.28 kW installed capacity isolated grid photovoltaic power plant installed at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran Saudi Arabia in June 2010. The plant was equipped with temperature, solar radiation intensity, and...

Comparative study on flat photovoltaic (PV) string and symmetric compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) photovoltaic system has been presented in this paper. Two flat PV strings and two unglazed PV–CPC systems are considered. The cells of each of the flat PV and PV–CPC strings are subjected...

The number of radiation data collection stations is limited due to economic reasons. Hence, there is a need for the spatially continuous mapping of solar radiation by estimation. This paper utilizes a geostatistical technique for the estimation of solar radiation in Saudi Arabia. This technique...

The percent increase in energy production with corresponding increase in hub-height for wind energy conversion system (WECS) from different manufacturers was compared in this study. It was seen that an increase of 10m in hub-height from 40 to 50m resulted in an increase of 3.17% in energy...