Wind Farm Loads under Wake Redirection Control

Stoyan Kanev, Edwin Bot and Jack Giles
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Stoyan Kanev: TNO, ECN Wind Energy, Westerduinweg 3, 1755LE Petten, The Netherlands
Edwin Bot: TNO, ECN Wind Energy, Westerduinweg 3, 1755LE Petten, The Netherlands
Jack Giles: RWE Renewables UK Limited, Swindon SN5 6PB, UK

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-15

Abstract: Active wake control (AWC) is a strategy for operating wind farms in such a way as to reduce the wake effects on the wind turbines, potentially increasing the overall power production. There are two concepts to AWC: induction control and wake redirection. The former strategy boils down to down-regulating the upstream turbines in order to increase the wind speed in their wakes. This has generally a positive effect on the turbine loading. The wake redirection concept, which relies on intentional yaw misalignment to move wakes away from downstream turbines, has a much more prominent impact and may lead to increased loading. Moreover, the turbines are typically not designed and certified to operate at large yaw misalignments. Even though the potential upsides in terms of power gain are very interesting, the risk for damage or downtime due to increased loading is seen as the main obstacle preventing large scale implementation of this technology. In order to provide good understanding on the impacts of AWC on the turbine loads, this paper presents the results from an in-depth analysis of the fatigue loads on the turbines of an existing wind farm. Even though for some wind turbine components the fatigue loads do increase for some wind conditions under yaw misalignment, it is demonstrated that the wake-induced loading decreases even more so that the lifetime loads under AWC are generally lower.

Keywords: wind farm control; active wake control; turbine loads; wake steering; induction control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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