Identifying Appropriate Probability Density Function for Wind Speed Profiles of Two Coastal Cities in Pakistan for Better Wind Power Assessment

To assess the wind power potential of a specific wind site, a suitable distribution function that best suits the wind data needs to be known. In this study, we employ four probability density functions (PDFs), namely Weibull, Rayleigh, Log-Normal, and Gamma, on wind speed data obtained from two coastal cities in Pakistan, Gwadar and Karachi, to check which one is the best suited. Cities along the coastline of Pakistan offer greater wind speeds and, thus, greater wind power potential. The maximum likelihood technique is used to estimate the parameters of the density distributions. Three statistical measures-Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), and Coefficient of Determination (R<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>)-are used to assess the goodness of fit for every distribution. These measures give a complete picture of every distribution's correctness in terms of reflecting the recorded wind speed patterns. Numerical results reveal that the Weibull distribution fits well with the wind speeds of the two coastal cities compared to the other three probability distributions, providing insightful analysis for the evaluation of wind resources and possible local energy generation. The MATLAB environment is used to compare the distributions and validate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.