Wind Farm Control

Challenge
The need for fast and increasingly accurate wake models for wind turbines is promoted by the quest for higher accuracy in energy yield predictions, the increased size of wind farms, and by the need to exploit the potential for increasing wind farm energy production through active wake control methods which are currently being developed. The increased interest of the industry towards wind farm optimisation control algorithms highlights the importance of reliable wake models.

Project
For the successful design of a wind farm control strategy, an increased accuracy and understanding of the limitations of engineering wake models is essential. This project is meant to demonstrate the feasibility and potential benefits of active wake control in a wind farm.

DNV activities

• Further develop design methods for wind farm control:
• Further development and validation of turbine wake models for improving confidence in rapid calculation of wake effects
• Quasi-static optimisation of turbine set-points across the wind farm to control wakes with the aim of maximising overall power production and minimising turbine loads
• Generation of practical dynamic wind farm control algorithms based on quasi-statically optimised set-points
• Realistic dynamic time-domain simulation model for entire wind farms, including varying wind conditions, dynamic wake effects, individual turbine behaviour, and wind farm control
• Simulation testing and quantification of energy gains and load reductions in realistic situations, covering a sufficiently wide range of scenarios and wind conditions
• Full-scale field testing of dynamic wind farm control algorithms to quantify practically realisable gains.

Dynamic simulation: wind speed contours showing atmospheric turbulence and wakes
Example simulation results: Total wind farm power and loads, with and without wind farm control