Investigating wind farm efficiency with turbulent flow simulations
Name of applicant
Mads Baungaard
Title
Postdoctoral Fellow
Institution
University of Oxford
Amount
DKK 900,000
Year
2023
Type of grant
Visiting Fellowships at University of Oxford
What?
Each wind turbine of a wind farm converts the incoming wind into electricity and there is therefore less energy available for the turbines at the back of the wind farm. This wind shadow effect has an immense negative effect on the overall wind farm production and the yearly wind farm efficiency is typically only 80%. In this project, a general theory for the wind farm efficiency will be developed.
Why?
For both commercial and environmental reasons, it is important that the ocean area allocated for wind farms is used efficiently. The less area that is used for a wind farm, the more its efficiency decreases, so a compromise needs to be taken. A general theory for wind farm efficiency would be able to help the wind farm developers and policy makers to make the best possible decisions.
How?
Flow simulations with a new advanced turbulence model will be used to simulate a wide range of wind farm flows. This data can subsequently be used to further develop and validate a newly proposed theory from dr. Nishino at the University of Oxford called the “two-scale momentum theory”, which describes the atmosphere and wind farm interaction and thus can predict the wind farm efficiency.