Portugal - MEGAJOULE publishes wind index for continental Portugal

APREN, the Portuguese Renewable Energy Association commissioned MEGAJOULE to generate and publish the first wind index for continental Portugal. Ricardo Guedes, executive board member at MEGAJOULE says "We feel honoured to be chosen to design and publish the first index of wind turbines on the Portuguese mainland. The participation of wind farm owners with more than 75% of total national capacity providing us with detailed operational data proofs the importance of the wind energy index.”

The wind index aims to quantify the fluctuations in the potential of electricity generation by wind farms around the average value or long term. Such fluctuations are characteristic of the wind regime specific in each geographical area.

To create the index, MEGAJOULE divided Portugal into six regions defined according to the similarity of their local wind regimes and density of wind farms in operation.

All main wind park promoters are providing MEGAJOULE with accurate wind energy data from their wind farms. “We are pleased about the great cooperation with the relevant wind farm owners. We expect that, over the course of the project more wind farms and developers can contribute to the project extending the representativeness and accuracy of results," expressed Ricardo Guedes.

In early 2010 MEGAJOULE published the wind index for 2009 describing the wind regime for each month of 2009. The wind index will be published quarterly and revised at the end of each year. Executive board member Ricardo Guedes explains that “MEGAJOULE expects to revise the methodology by the end of each year in order to make it more accurate and independent of the operational aspects of exploration."

The wind index is available on the website of APREN or MEGAJOULE:
http://www.megajoule.pt/catalogo_noticias.php?ID=57&lingua=pt

MEGAJOULE, as the Portuguese market leader in independent renewable energy consultancy, is strongly committed to promoting alternative and sustainable energy solutions. MEGAJOULE’S core business is wind assessment, but there is a wide range of technical services MEGAJOULE offers from CFDs and mesoscale maps to power performance tests and independent project due diligence. In addition to the creation of MEGAJOULE|Inovação, MEGAJOULE has opened offices in Brazil and Poland in the beginning of 2010. Acting globally MEGAJOULE also provides advice on solar energy and biomass projects.

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