Multiple Wind Turbine Wakes Modeling Considering the Faster Wake Recovery in Overlapped Wakes

Abstract

In a wind farm some wind turbines may be affected by multiple upwind wakes. The commonly used approach in engineering to simulate the interaction effect of different wakes is to combine the single analytical wake model and the interaction model. The higher turbulence level and shear stress profile generated by upwind turbines in the superposed area leads to faster wake recovery. The existing interaction models are all analytical models based on some simple assumptions of superposition, which cannot characterize this phenomenon. Therefore, in this study, a mixing coefficient is introduced into the classical energy balance interaction model with the aim of reflecting the effect of turbulence intensity on velocity recovery in multiple wakes. An empirical expression is also given to calculate this parameter. The performance of the new model is evaluated using data from the Lillgrund and the Horns Rev I offshore wind farms, and the simulations agree reasonably with the observations. The comparison of different interaction model simulation results with measured data show that the calculation accuracy of this new interaction model is high, and the mean absolute percentage error of wind farm efficiency is reduced by 5.3% and 1.58%, respectively, compared to the most commonly used sum of squares interaction model.

Keywords

• wind farm
• analytical model
• wake interaction model
• turbulence intensity
• mixing coefficient
• wind farm efficiency