Array losses in large wind farms

Luca Lavaroni (1, 2)

Academic Supervisors: Prof. M.J. Cook, Prof. S.J. Watson (1)
Industrial Supervisors: Dr M. Dubal, L. Mazzella (2)
(1) Loughborough University, (2) E.On New Build & Technology Ltd

Overview
The installation of multiple turbines in large wind farms over recent years has introduced two major planning issues to deal with: a drop in power
production due to the deficits in wake velocity, and an increase in dynamic loading on the blades that originates from higher turbulence values. As a
result, power in a downstream turbine can be reduced by 40% or more in conditions of full wake, depending on the specific layout and the wind speed
and direction.
Although many numerical models embracing different techniques have been implemented to reproduce wake physics and some of them have matched
field data with an acceptable accuracy, they have not provided an approach for a general and more complete understanding of the unsteady wake flow
and a more comprehensive description of the turbulent features involved. Moreover, field data have highlighted important aspects that need to be
considered with a better understanding during the modelling phase, including: the meandering of the wake; the drop in power production in the second
in-line turbine followed by a recovery of the wake in the downstream turbines; and atmospheric stability conditions.
The aim of this research is to use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to model air flows through large off-shore wind farms and to develop a method for
predicting their energy yield. In particular, the research investigates how wakes interact with each other and cause a decrease in power output and an
increase in loading for subsequent turbines.

Methodology Results
Nysted wind farm – test case
Ø CFD simulations. 6.051
x 10
6
Nysted wind farm layout

A
B

Ø Implementation of Data from Nysted wind farm

C
D
E

Model the 6.05 F

G
H

rotor modelling wake (located in Denmark) was 1

UTM Coordinates Northing [m]

6.049 2

techniques. propagated analysed using south and west W 3

by a single wind directions. The CFD

6.048
4

Ø Benchmarking of the turbine

5

CFD/rotor modelling simulations were carried out 6.047

6.02D
6

techniques and using a set of pre and post 8

Model the
6.046
9

processing scripts in Ansys CFX

10.84D
S

validation of the whole wind 6.045

to embed the physics of the

6.71 6.72 6.73 6.74 6.75 6.76 6.77 6.78 6.79 6.8

farm UTM Coordinates Easting [m] 5

results against
x 10

interacting Implement the atmospheric boundary layer. Nysted wind farm layout, southerly
field data. wakes and westerly wind directions
most suitable
Ø Extraction of the numerical
relevant parameters method/modelling
technique to
from the CFD design the new
simulations to feed generation of
a simplified and fast large wind farms
reliable code.

Numerical methods
Unsteady
Reynolds Averaged
Reynolds SAS/DES/LES
Navier-Stokes
Averaged N-S
RANS velocity contours, horizontal URANS (top) and RANS (bottom) turb.
5 million cells mesh 50 million cells mesh section kinetic energy contours , vert. section
Normalised Power - South, 10+/-1 m/s hub velocity
RANS and URANS simulations in full 1

Simulations set-up
Field data 178°±2°

wake conditions were compared with

RANS SST 182°
0.9 RANS KE 182°
Transient SST Neutral

Local desktop HPC the field data. The URANS power Transient KE Neutral
Normalised Power

0.8

production results gave good

Pre-processing agreement, showing discrepancies in
0.7

Solver the range of 5-10% from the field 0.6

Post-processing data. 0.5

Normalised power production comparison (right) 0.4

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Turbine

Impacts
As off-shore wind farms increase in size, one of the research challenges is
to evaluate how to model interactions between the individual turbines, the
atmosphere and neighbouring turbines so as to accurately predict power
output before wind farm construction. For E.ON, accurate, rapid predictions
of energy generation are essential if they are to justify investing in off-shore
wind. This project is addressing these challenges by refining advanced
turbulence models and solution procedures. Initial studies have shown that
improvements in power yield estimates of 10-20% over existing methods
can be achieved. These results are being used to develop a simplified,
faster, more accurate method of calculating the power production of the RANS (top) and URANS (bottom) velocity Actuator disk modelling
new generation of wind farms. contours, vertical section at the turbine