Wind Turbine Wake Effects on Wind Resource Assessments – a Case Study

Abstract

This paper describes a case study of wind turbine wake loss effects on wind resource assessment in cold region. One year wind park SCADA data is used. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based numerical simulations are carried out for wind resource assessment and estimation of resultant Annual Energy Production (AEP). Numerical results are compared with the field SCADA data, where a good agreement is found. To better understand the wind flow physics and effects of wind turbine turbulence wake loss effects, three different wake loss models are used for the numerical simulations, where results with wake model is found in best agreement with the AEP estimation from field SCADA data. A detailed comparison of all wind turbines is also presented with the gross AEP. A preliminary case study about wind park layout optimization has also been carried out which shows that AEP can be improved by optimizing the wind park layout and CFD simulations can be used as a tool in this regards.