Optimal turbine spacing in fully developed wind farm boundary layers

As wind farms become larger, the asymptotic limit of the ‘fully developed’, or ‘infinite’, wind farm has been receiving an increased interest. This limit is relevant for wind farms on flat terrain whose length exceeds the height of the atmospheric boundary layer by over an order of magnitude. Recent computational studies based on large eddy simulation have identified various mean velocity equilibrium layers and have led to parameterizations of the effective roughness height that allow the prediction of the wind velocity at hub height as a function of parameters such as wind turbine spacing and loading factors. In the current paper, we employ this as a tool in making predictions of optimal wind turbine spacing as a function of these parameters, as well as in terms of the ratio of turbine costs to land surface costs. For realistic cost ratios, we find that the optimal average turbine spacing may be considerably higher than that conventionally used in current wind farm implementations. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dependence of optimal wind turbine spacing on wind farm length

Recent large eddy simulations have led to improved parameterizations of the effective roughness height of wind farms. This effective roughness height can be used to predict the wind velocity at hub‐height as function of the geometric mean of the spanwise and streamwise turbine spacings and the turbine loading factors. Recently, Meyers and Meneveau used these parameterizations to make predictions for the optimal wind turbine spacing in infinitely large wind farms. They found that for a realistic cost ratio between the turbines and the used land surface, the optimal turbine spacing may be considerably larger than that used in conventional wind farms. Here, we extend this analysis by taking the length of the wind farm, i.e. the number of rows in the downstream direction into account and show that the optimal turbine spacing strongly depends on the wind farm length. For small to moderately sized wind farms, the model predictions are consistent with spacings found in operational wind farms. For much larger wind farms, the extended optimal spacing found for infinite wind farms is confirmed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of turbine spacing on the power output of extended wind‐farms

We present results from large eddy simulations of extended wind‐farms for several turbine configurations with a range of different spanwise and streamwise spacing combinations. The results show that for wind‐farms arranged in a staggered configuration with spanwise spacings in the range ≈[3.5,8]D, where D is the turbine diameter, the power output in the fully developed regime depends primarily on the geometric mean of the spanwise and streamwise turbine spacings. In contrast, for the aligned configuration the power output in the fully developed regime strongly depends on the streamwise turbine spacing and shows weak dependence on the spanwise spacing. Of interest to the rate of wake recovery, we find that the power output is well correlated with the vertical kinetic energy flux, which is a measure of how much kinetic energy is transferred into the wind‐turbine region by the mean flow. A comparison between the aligned and staggered configurations reveals that the vertical kinetic energy flux is more localized along turbine columns for aligned wind‐farms than for staggered ones. This additional mixing leads to a relatively fast wake recovery for aligned wind‐farms. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于运行数据的风电机组转矩控制性能评估

风电机组的性能评估方法具有多样性及复杂性的特点,基于风电场SCADA系统中采集的大量风电机组运行数据,对风电机组转矩控制的性能评估方法进行了研究。在深入分析风电机组中发电机转速与发电机转矩关系的基础上,提出了风电机组在最佳风能利用系数Cp(max)跟踪区内的转矩优化控制的性能评估方法。通过筛选有效数据,拟合计算出风电机组的实际运行转矩增益系数;再通过与理论最优转矩增益系数进行对比,找出风能捕获能力较弱的风电机组,进而采取措施提高其发电量。通过软件仿真及案例分析表明,该方法在不增加设备及成本的情况下,可有效识别因转矩控制的性能差而影响发电量的风电机组,以便及时进行控制策略调校,维护风电场的利益。     

风电场的组合维修策略研究

为降低风电场维修成本,提出针对风电场的风电机组部件组合维修策略。在各部件故障率服从威布尔分布的基础上,确定各部件的最优预防性维修周期,进而确定各部件后续预防性维修的实施时刻。将未来一段时间内的全部维修任务按分组方案组合为多个维修组,单一维修组内包含的全部维修任务采用分层优化方法安排给多支维修队一起执行,以使在风电机组停机时间最短情况下维修队工作时间最短。对比组合维修策略与预防性维修策略的维系成本,以分组方案节约维修成本为适应度,使用遗传算法求解最优分组方案。仿真结果验证了该策略可有效减少风电机组的停机时间,降低风电场维修成本。     

TOPFARM: Multi‐fidelity optimization of wind farms

A wind farm layout optimization framework based on a multi‐fidelity optimization approach is applied to the offshore test case of Middelgrunden, Denmark as well as to the onshore test case of Stag Holt – Coldham wind farm, UK. While aesthetic considerations have heavily influenced the famous curved design of the Middelgrunden wind farm, this work focuses on demonstrating a method that optimizes the profit of wind farms over their lifetime based on a balance of the energy production income, the electrical grid costs, the foundations cost, and the cost of wake turbulence induced fatigue degradation of different wind turbine components. A multi‐fidelity concept is adapted, which uses cost function models of increasing complexity (and decreasing speed) to accelerate the convergence to an optimum solution. In the EU‐FP6 TOPFARM project, three levels of complexity are considered. The first level uses a simple stationary wind farm wake model to estimate the Annual Energy Production (AEP), a foundations cost model depending on the water depth and an electrical grid cost function dictated by cable length. The second level calculates the AEP and adds a wake‐induced fatigue degradation cost function on the basis of the interpolation in a database of simulations performed for various wind speeds and wake setups with the aero‐elastic code HAWC2 and the dynamic wake meandering model. The third level, not considered in this present paper, includes directly the HAWC2 and the dynamic wake meandering model in the optimization loop in order to estimate both the fatigue costs and the AEP. The novelty of this work is the implementation of the multi‐fidelity approach in the context of wind farm optimization, the inclusion of the fatigue degradation costs in the optimization framework, and its application on the optimal performance as seen through an economical perspective. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modelling and measurements of power losses and turbulence intensity in wind turbine wakes at Middelgrunden offshore wind farm

Understanding of power losses and turbulence increase due to wind turbine wake interactions in large offshore wind farms is crucial to optimizing wind farm design. Power losses and turbulence increase due to wakes are quantified based on observations from Middelgrunden and state‐of‐the‐art models. Observed power losses due solely to wakes are approximately 10% on average. These are relatively high for a single line of wind turbines due in part to the close spacing of the wind farm. The wind farm model Wind Analysis and Application Program (WAsP) is shown to capture wake losses despite operating beyond its specifications for turbine spacing. The paper describes two methods of estimating turbulence intensity: one based on the mean and standard deviation (SD) of wind speed from the nacelle anemometer, the other from mean power output and its SD. Observations from the nacelle anemometer indicate turbulence intensity which is around 9% higher in absolute terms than those derived from the power measurements. For comparison, turbulence intensity is also derived from wind speed and SD from a meteorological mast at the same site prior to wind farm construction. Despite differences in the measurement height and period, overall agreement is better between the turbulence intensity derived from power measurements and the meteorological mast than with those derived from data from the nacelle anemometers. The turbulence in wind farm model indicates turbulence increase of the order 20% in absolute terms for flow directly along the row which is in good agreement with the observations. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modeling noise and lease soft costs improves wind farm design and cost-of-energy predictions

The Department of Energy uses the metric Cost-of-Energy to assess the financial viability of wind farms. Non-hardware costs, termed soft costs, make up approximately 21% of total cost for a land-based farm, yet are only represented with general assumptions in models of Cost-of-Energy. This work replaces these assumptions with a probabilistic model of the costs of land lease and noise disturbance compensation, which is incorporated into a wind-farm-layout-optimization-under-uncertainty model. These realistic representations are applied to an Iowa land area with real land boundaries and house locations to accentuate the challenges of accommodating landowners. The paper also investigates and removes a common but unnecessary term that overestimates cost-savings from installing multiple turbines. These three contributions combine to produce COE estimates in-line with industry data, replacing “soft” assumptions with specific parameters, identify noise and risk concerns prohibitive to the development of profitable wind farm. The model predicts COEs remarkably close to real-world costs. Wind energy policy-makers can use this model to promote new areas of soft-cost-focused research.     

State‐space representation of the wind flow model in wind farms

A dynamic model for the wind flow in wind farms is developed in this paper. The model is based on the spatial discretization of the linearized Navier–Stokes equation combined with the vortex cylinder theory. The spatial discretization of the model is performed using the finite difference method, which provides the state‐space form of the dynamic wind farm model. The model provides an approximation of the behavior of the flow in the wind farm and obtains the wind speed in the vicinity of each wind turbine. Afterwards, the model is validated using measurement data of Energy research Center of the Netherlands’ Wind turbine Test site in Wieringermeer in the Netherlands and by employing the outcomes of two other wind flow models. The end goal of this work is to present the wind farm flow model by ordinary differential equations, to be applied in wind farm control algorithms along with load and power optimizations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于改进粒子群算法的风力机选型应用研究

风力机的选型是风电场建设的重要内容,它对风电场建设造价、投产后的发电量以及运行维护成本等有直接影响。文章在给定风资源的情况下,综合考虑风电场的容量系数和实际发电量,以风力机性能指数作为选型的依据,针对采用常规方法进行风力机参数线性化求解的缺陷,采用智能化的改进粒子群算法对风力机参数进行寻优。与常规计算方法相比,该方法寻得的风力机性能指数更优。结合具体实例计算候选机型的风速加权标准差,选出最优风力机。该研究结果为风电场的风力机选型提供了一种有效可行的方法,具有一定的应用参考价值。     

Technoeconomic study for the optimization of turbine size and wind farm layouts

A technoeconomic analysis and optimization of wind turbine size and layout are performed using WAsP software. A case study of a 100‐MW wind farm located in Egypt is considered. Wind atlas for Egypt was used as the input data of the WAsP software. Two turbine models of powers 52 and 80 MW are considered for this project. The wind turbine size and distributions are selected based on the technoeconomic optimization, namely minimum wake effect, maximum annual energy production (AEP) rate, optimum cash flow, and payback period. The future worth method is adopted in economic comparison between the two alternatives, and the cash flow diagram provided the payback period and future worth after the lifetime of the plant. The results showed that (1) the AEP dramatically decreases for a wind farm area less than 15 km²; (2) the turbine spacing, spacing‐to‐diameter ratio, and the setback distances decrease and the wind turbine density and wake losses increase with decreasing the wind turbines size; (3) the total net AEP using G52 is lower than that of using G80 by about 16%; (4) the technoeconomic analysis recommended using G80 as it has higher profit than those of G52 by about $20 million.     

Wind turbine rotor imbalance detection using nacelle and blade measurements

Wind power is the world's fastest growing renewable energy source, but operations and maintenance costs are still a major obstacle toward reliability and widescale adoption of wind power, accounting for a large part of the cost of energy for offshore installations. Structural health monitoring systems have been proposed for implementing condition‐based maintenance. The wind energy industry currently uses condition monitoring systems that are mostly adapted from roating machinery in other power generation industries. However, these systems have had limited effectiveness on wind turbines because of their atypical operating conditions, which are characterized by low and variable rotational speed, rapidly varying torque, extremely large rotors and stochastic loading from the wind. Although existing systems primarily take measurements from the nacelle, valuable information can be extracted from the structural dynamic response of the rotor blades to mitigate potentially damaging loading conditions. One such condition is rotor imbalance, which not only reduces the aerodynamic efficiency of the turbine and therefore its power output but can also lead to very large increases in loading on the drivetrain, blades and tower. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's fast software was used to model both mass and aerodynamic imbalance in a 5 MW offshore wind turbine. It is shown that a combination of blade and nacelle measurements, most of which can be obtained from standard instrumentation already found on utility‐scale wind turbines, can be formulated into an algorithm used to detect and locate imbalance. The method described herein allows for imbalance detection that is potentially more sensitive than existing on‐line systems, while taking advantage of sensors that are already in place on many utility‐scale wind turbines. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fatigue distribution optimization for offshore wind farms using intelligent agent control

A novel control approach is proposed to optimize the fatigue distribution of wind turbines in a large‐scale offshore wind farm on the basis of an intelligent agent theory. In this approach, each wind turbine is considered to be an intelligent agent. The turbine at the farm boundary communicates with its neighbouring downwind turbines and organizes them adaptively into a wind delivery group along the wind direction. The agent attributes and the event structure are designed on the basis of the intelligent agent theory by using the unified modelling language. The control strategy of the intelligent agent is studied using topology models. The reference power of an individual wind turbine from the wind farm controller is re‐dispatched to balance the turbine fatigue in the power dispatch intervals. In the fatigue optimization, the goal function is to minimize the standard deviation of the fatigue coefficient for every wind turbine. The optimization is constrained such that the average fatigue for every turbine is smaller than what would be achieved by conventional dispatch and such that the total power loss of the wind farm is restricted to a few percent of the total power. This intelligent agent control approach is verified through the simulation of wind data from the Horns Rev offshore wind farm. The results illustrate that intelligent agent control is a feasible way to optimize fatigue distribution in wind farms, which may reduce the maintenance frequency and extend the service life of large‐scale wind farms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于多状态空间划分的风电机组非完美维修决策

对风电机组的合理维护维修是减少风电场运维成本的重要方式。同一风电场的多台风力发电机构成了一个典型的多部件系统,各风力发电机的运行性能共同决定了系统整体的运行效率和维修需求。同时,对各风力发电机的维修效果也将影响到系统后续的可利用率和维修决策。该文以同一风电场中多台风力发电机的主轴组成的同型多部件系统为对象,在考虑非完美维修的条件下制定基于周期检测的视情机会维修策略;构建考虑非完美维修的多状态退化空间划分模型,以定义系统状态与维修需求的表示及关系,并归纳推导系统维修需求概率的计算模型和非完美维修干预下的系统退化及维修恢复过程中的状态转移概率;在此基础上,建立系统平均费用率解析模型,以确定最优的检测周期和维修阈值。通过某风电场的主轴实际运行数据进行数值实验,验证策略和模型的正确性和有效性,并对参数进行灵敏度分析以说明模型的适用性。结果表明该策略能有效减少风电场的运维成本。     

WMS软件在风电场微观选址中的应用

以张北坝头风电场一期工程为基础,采用WMS软件(风电场工程特性分析与微观选址软件)对风电机组进行微观选址计算,使风场有较优的布机方案和更好的经济效益,表明用WMS软件对坝头风电场进行微观选址是可行和有效的。     

Large eddy simulations of the effect of vertical staggering in large wind farms

In order to study the effect of vertical staggering in large wind farms, large eddy simulations (LES) of large wind farms with a regular turbine layout aligned with the given wind direction were conducted. In the simulations, we varied the hub heights of consecutive downstream rows to create vertically staggered wind farms. We analysed the effect of streamwise and spanwise turbine spacing, the wind farm layout, the turbine rotor diameter, and hub height difference between consecutive downstream turbine rows on the average power output. We find that vertical staggering significantly increases the power production in the entrance region of large wind farms and is more effective when the streamwise turbine spacing and turbine diameter are smaller. Surprisingly, vertical staggering does not significantly improve the power production in the fully developed regime of the wind farm. The reason is that the downward vertical kinetic energy flux, which brings high velocity fluid from above the wind farm towards the hub height plane, does not increase due to vertical staggering. Thus, the shorter wind turbines are effectively sheltered from the atmospheric flow above the wind farm that supplies the energy, which limits the benefit of vertical staggering. In some cases, a vertically staggered wind farm even produced less power than the corresponding non vertically staggered reference wind farm. In such cases, the production of shorter turbines is significantly negatively impacted while the production of the taller turbine is only increased marginally.     

Wind farm generation forecast and optimal maintenance schedule model

Wind farms must periodically take their turbines offline in order to perform scheduled maintenance repairs. Given that these interruptions impact energy generation and that under Power Purchase Agreements productions shortfalls must be replaced by energy purchases in the spot market, the optimal time to begin maintenance work in a wind farm is a function of both the expected wind speeds and electricity spot prices. In this article, we develop a model to determine the optimal maintenance schedule of a wind farm based on forecasted wind speeds and energy prices. We analyze a window of opportunity in the most likely period of the year and perform weekly updates of expected wind speeds and energy price forecasts. Wind speeds are forecasted with an ARMAX model, where monthly dummies are used as exogenous variables to capture the seasonality of wind speeds, while spot prices are simulated under a standard dual stochastic programing model. The decision to defer maintenance to a future date is modeled in a probabilistic model and also under the real options approach. We test these models with actual data from a wind farm in the Brazilian Northeast and provide comparisons with current practice in order to determine the benefits of the model. The results suggest that this model may provide advantages over a stopping decision that randomly chooses a week to begin maintenance within the opportunity window and is close to the optimal stopping date considering perfect information on future wind speeds and electricity prices.     

新型海上风力发电及其关键技术研究

回顾国外海上风力发电场的发展,针对随着海水深度增加导致海上风力机成本急剧上升的矛盾,引入海上漂浮式风力机概念,并详细介绍其结构和特点,通过系统介绍海上漂浮式风力机组成部分和设计制造中的关键技术,最后得出海上漂浮式风机是一种潜力巨大的新型风力发电技术,值得进一步深入研究。同时,针对我国陆、海资源的具体情况,较为系统地提出了海上漂浮式风力机研究的需要关注的关键问题,指出了该研究所具有的巨大社会经济价值。     

基于成本模型法的1MW变速风电机组的参数优化设计分析

主要针对大型变速变距风力发电机组样机在产业化过程中如何以降低机组发电成本、提高经济性为目标对机组参数的优化设计进行探讨。首先阐述了发电成本的计算过程和成本模型法的基本计算规则,然后以国家863"兆瓦级变速恒频风电机组"研制成果SUT-1000的成本构成为例,分别对机组的主要设计参数即风轮直径和额定风速进行了优化设计和对比,并对依据经验确定的变化因子进行了敏感性分析,最后进行了同等容量约束条件下机组的参数综合优化设计,可适用于不同安装场址。     

Experimental verification of computational predictions in power generation variation with layout of offshore wind farms

The optimization of wind farms with respect to spatial layout is addressed experimentally. Wake effects within wind turbine farms are well known to be deleterious in terms of power generation and structural loading, which is corroborated in this study. Computational models are the predominant tools in the prediction of turbine‐induced flow fields. However, for wind farms comprising hundreds of turbines, reliability of the obtained numerical data becomes a growing concern with potentially costly consequences. This study pursues a systematic complementary theoretical, experimental and numerical study of variations in generated power with turbine layout of an 80 turbine large wind farm. Wake effects within offshore wind turbine arrays are emulated using porous discs mounted on a flat plate in a wind tunnel. The adopted approach to reproduce experimentally individual turbine wake characteristics is presented, and drag measurements are argued to correctly capture the variation in power generation with turbine layout. Experimental data are juxtaposed with power predictions using ANSYS WindModeller simulation suite. Although comparison with available wind farm power output data has been limited, it is demonstrated nonetheless that this approach has potential for the validation of numerical models of power loss due to wake effects or even to make a direct physical prediction. The approach has even indicated useful data for the improvement of the physics within numerical models. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.