Performability analysis of the second order semi-Markov chains: an application to wind energy production

TL;DR

This paper introduces a second order semi-Markov reward model for analyzing wind energy production, deriving new equations for higher moments, and applies it to real wind speed data to estimate energy output.

Contribution

It presents the first derivation of higher order moments equations for second order semi-Markov reward models and applies them to wind energy data.

Findings

Computed expectation and variance of total energy produced

Validated the model with real wind speed data

Provided a new analytical approach for wind energy assessment

Abstract

In this paper a general second order semi-Markov reward model is presented. Equations for the higher order moments of the reward process are presented for the first time and applied to wind energy production. The application is executed by considering a database, freely available from the web, that includes wind speed data taken from L.S.I. - Lastem station (Italy) and sampled every 10 minutes. We compute the expectation and the variance of the total energy produced by using the commercial blade Aircon HAWT - 10 kW.