A collaborative project funded by Innovate UK, CONFLOWS (CONtrol of FLOating wind farms with Wake Steering), focuses on floating offshore wind farms. It aims to reduce the levelized cost of energy (LCoE) by investigating the effects of using wake steering on floating wind farms.
The levelized cost of energy is an important factor in determining the viability of a project such as a floating offshore wind farm. Similar to onshore and bottom-fixed offshore wind farms, floating wind farms need to optimize the total productivity by taking into account the impact individual turbines can have on others in the farm.
This requires that all aspects affecting output are investigated. The project has focused on three areas: wind resources which involves wake modelling and wind farm control, floating platform design and economic modelling.
Wake steering technology
DNV and partners undertook the UK-US research project to investigate the application of wake steering on floating offshore wind farms.
The project partners shared data and knowledge to improve the modelling of site-specific meteorological conditions and complex wind farm wake scenarios due to wind farm control applications, to advance the offshore wind industry as a whole.
In particular, the project focused on a strategy known as wake steering, which attempts to deflect each turbine’s wake away from downstream turbines, allowing increased overall power production, and longer lifetime of the turbine through reduced fatigue damage.
The economic analysis undertaken gives a comprehensive overview of the effects of the use of wake steering techniques and whether they can have a positive impact on the project costs.
The benefits
There is growing interest in novel wind farm control strategies which can improve the operation of the wind farm as a whole, rather than controlling each wind turbine as if it were operating in isolation from its neighbours.
By using wake steering technology, it is estimated that an average-sized wind farm can create a gain in annual energy production sufficiently significant for the purpose of asset financing.
Improved turbine designs and mooring systems may result from the project, thereby increasing output from floating wind farms.
Market potential
As the floating offshore wind sector looks set to expand, research is needed to understand whether technology proven for onshore and bottom-fixed wind farms can deliver similar impacts on improving energy production of offshore floating wind farms.
An example of the scale of the improvements to be made is Hywind Scotland, Equinor’s world-first floating offshore wind farm which achieved a LCoE of £180/MWh. However, the typical LCoE of a fixed offshore wind farm in the UK is well below this at £55/MWh.
