Application of staring lidars to study the dynamics of wind turbine wakes

Abstract

Standard anemometry or vertical profiling remote sensing are not always a convenient approach to study the dynamics of wind turbines wake. One or more lidar windscanner can be applied for this purpose. In this paper a measurement strategy is presented, which permits the characterization of the wake dynamics using two long range wind lidars operated in a stationary mode. In this approach two pulsed devices are staring with low elevation obliquely across the wake. The lidar beams are supposed to cross each other on the downstream axis of the wake to perform simultaneous measurements in the wake field from side to side. The deflection of the wake is identified fitting a model to the average data. Spectral analysis provide the frequency content of the measurements at different distances from the wake center. This setup was implemented in a full-field measurement campaign where the wake of a multi-MW wind turbine was analysed. The tracking of the wake centre was applied successfully to this measurement. Moreover the spectral analysis showed increased energy content close to the wake lateral edges. This can be connected both to the higher turbulence level due to the tip vorteces and to the large scale dynamics of the wake.

Keywords

• wind turbine wake
• meandering
• lidar