• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.54-64
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• 2010

Interest in new and renewable energies like solar energy and wind energy is increasing throughout the world due to the rapidly expanding energy consumption and environmental reasons. An essential requirement for wind force power generation is estimating the size of wind energy accurately. Wind energy is estimated usually using meteorological data or field measurement. This study attempted to estimate wind energy density using meteorological data on daily mean wind speed and the Weibull parameters in Seoul, a representative inland city where over 60% of 15 story or higher apartments in Korea are situated, and Busan, Incheon, Ulsan and Jeju that are major coastal cities in Korea. According to the results of analysis, the monthly mean probability density distribution based on the daily mean wind speed agreed well with the monthly mean probability density distribution based on the Weibull parameters. This finding suggests that the Weibull parameters, which is highly applicable and convenient, can be utilized to estimate the wind energy density distribution of each area. Another finding was that wind energy density was higher in coastal cities Busan and Incheon than in inland city Seoul.