Wind speed prediction in the mountainous region of India using an artificial neural network model

Measured wind speed data are not available for most sites in the mountainous regions of India. The objective of present study is to predict wind speeds for 11 locations in the Western Himalayan Indian state of Himachal Pradesh to identify possible wind energy applications. An artificial neural network (ANN) model is used to predict wind speeds using measured wind data of Hamirpur location for training and testing. Temperature, air pressure, solar radiation and altitude are taken as inputs for the ANN model to predict daily mean wind speeds. Mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and correlation coefficient between the predicted and measured wind speeds are found to be 4.55% and 0.98 respectively. Predicted wind speeds are found to range from 1.27 to 3.78 m/s for Bilaspur, Chamba, Kangra, Kinnaur, Kullu, Keylong, Mandi, Shimla, Sirmaur, Solan and Una locations. A micro-wind turbine is used to assess the wind power generated at these locations which is found to vary from 773.61 W to 5329.76 W which is suitable for small lighting applications. Model is validated by predicting wind speeds for Gurgaon city for which measured data are available with MAPE 6.489% and correlation coefficient 0.99 showing high prediction accuracy of the developed ANN Model. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.