Abstract: It was difficult to confirm the potential wind area according to the meteorological data from the current sparse weather stations. However, the numerical simulation technique can make it up with improving the spatial resolution. The wind energy resource in the west of Jilin province was simulated by the WRF (weather research and forecast) model. The results show the diurnal and annual variations of wind speed could be simulated well. The correlation coefficients between simulated and observed values at 10 m, 50 m and 70 m heights are 0.889, 0.862 and 0.865, respectively, and they all pass 0.001 significance level test. Simulation results could reveal the potential wind area that may not be explored by the observational data. The numerical simulation techniques can be used for siting of wind farm, which is confirmed by the observation of wind tower. It reveals that the simulated wind speed is higher than the observed speed and the simulated spatial distribution differences are less than observed one. It suggests that there is limitation for the accuracy of existing numerical model, so wind farm micrositing would be still relied on the observation of wind tower.

Key words: Numerical simulation, Wind farm macro-siting, Potential wind farm, Verification