An investigation of mesoscale wind direction changes and their consideration in engineering models

Abstract

Abstract. We propose that considering mesoscale wind direction changes in the computation of wind farm cluster wakes could reduce the uncertainty of engineering wake modelling tools. The relevance of mesoscale wind direction changes is investigated using a wind climatology of the German Bight area covering 30 years, derived from the New European Wind Atlas (NEWA). Furthermore, we present a new solution for engineering modelling tools that accounts for the effect of such changes on the propagation of cluster wakes. Mesoscale wind direction changes are found to exceed 7° per 100 km in 50 % of all cases and are particularly large in the lower partial load range, which is associated with strong wake formation. Here, the quartiles reach up to 20° per 100 km. Especially on a horizontal scale of several tens to a hundred kilometers, wind direction changes are relevant. Both the temporal and spatial scale at which large wind direction changes occur depend on the presence of pressure systems. Furthermore, atmospheric conditions which promote far-reaching wakes were found to align with a strong turning in 14.6 % of the cases. In order to capture these mesoscale wind direction changes in engineering model tools, a wake propagation model was implemented into the Fraunhofer IWES wind farm and wake modelling software flappy. The propagation model derives streamlines from the horizontal velocity field and forces the single turbine wakes along these streamlines. This model has been qualitatively evaluated by simulating the flow around wind farm clusters in the German Bight with data from the mesoscale atlas of NEWA and comparing the results to Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) measurements for selected situations. The comparison reveals that the flow patterns are in good agreement if the underlying mesoscale data capture the velocity field well. For such cases, the new model provides an improvement compared to the baseline approach of engineering models, which assumes a straight-line propagation of wakes. The streamline and the baseline model have been further compared in terms of their quantitative effect on the energy yield. Simulating two neighbouring wind farm clusters over a time period of 10 years, it is found that there are no significant differences across the models when computing the total energy yield of both clusters. However, extracting the wake effect of one cluster on the other, the two models show a difference of about 1 %. Even greater differences are commonly observed when comparing single situations. Therefore, we claim that the model has the potential to reduce uncertainty in applications such as site assessment and short-term power forecasting.

Large-eddy simulations of the interaction between wind farms and mesoscale effects

“…As a next step, our method can be used to further develop and evaluate the representation of dynamic wind direction e ects on power production in engineering wake models. Recently, von Brandis et al [251] incorporated mesoscale background fields into the Fraunhofer IWES wind farm and wake modeling software Farm Layout Program in Python (flappy). Their study highlights the importance of considering wind direction changes in the modeling of wind farms, especially if multiple wind farms within close proximity of each other are considered [251].…”

“…In addition to the LES study of wind farm wakes presented in this thesis, other mesoscale flow phenomena have to be taken into account when studying wind farm wakes. For example, von Brandis et al [251] discovered that the mesoscale wind direction can change by more than 7 ¶ when considering distances of 5-100 km. These wind direction changes can have a significant impact on the interaction between wind farms.…”