Articles | Volume 11, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-11-217-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-11-217-2026
Research article
 | 
19 Jan 2026
Research article |  | 19 Jan 2026

Determining the ideal length of wind speed series for wind speed distribution and resource assessment

Lihong Zhou and Igor Esau

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Cited articles

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Short summary
How much hourly wind data are enough for reliable resource assessment? Using long-term station records and reconstructed datasets, we test sample sizes and sampling strategies. Means, variability, and Weibull scale converge within a sample size of 1 month of hours, but distribution shape needs far more. Random cross-year sampling reaches a given accuracy with far less data than continuous sampling.
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