Large eddy simulations of wind turbine and wind farm wakes

With the continuing growth in wind energy, the ability to accurately predict wind turbine and farm wakes, including their interactions with the surrounding atmosphere and neighboring sites, is one of the current grand challenges in wind energy science. Wind farm wakes can significantly degrade the power performance of downstream wind plants and increase the overall cost of wind energy, and also be difficult to capture with current models. In this talk, we discuss recent work using the DOE’s ExaWind simulation codes to model wakes at both the individual turbine scale and for larger collections of wind farms. Comparisons of individual turbine wake behavior between large eddy simulations and measured data from the Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) facility will be presented. At the larger scale, simulations of multiple wind farms performed as a part of the American WAKE Experiment (AWAKEN) will be shown, and the farm wake behavior and upstream wind farm blockage will also be analyzed. Lastly, we will consider recent developments in active wake control strategies using shear flow stability theory to reduce wake length through the introduction of specific periodic perturbations at the rotor.

Speaker: Lawrence Cheung, Sandia National Labs