Blockage, Wind Farm-Atmosphere Interaction, and Wakes at a Coastal Wind Farm
10 Sep 19
5:00 PM
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6:00 PM
Wind flow retardation (blockage), acceleration, and wakes, are estimated for a tropical coastal wind farm using an unusually robust data set of pre-construction and post-construction met tower data, modeling, and scanning lidars. The wind farm consists of multiple rows with near-linear turbine strings. Turbines are oriented perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction and are spaced laterally within strings near 2.0 rotor diameters (RD). Numerous permanent met towers that were installed more than one year prior to commercial operations and that are located within 2-3 RD upwind or between turbine strings are utilized, as well as towers far downstream (20 RD) from the operating turbines and on the periphery (10 RD) of the wind farm in a non-dominant wind direction. Local long-term reference tall tower data unaffected by project wakes are used as a proxy to gauge climatology-related effects against on-site wind flow blockage effects. Mesoscale and linear wind flow modeling results are compared to in-situ data to gauge their accuracy compared with the measurements. Results from a dual-scanning lidar study of the same wind farm are presented. The lidar measurements, combined with array aggregate production and the aforementioned meteorological towers, are used to help understand and more specifically identify the degree to which blockage contributes to array aggregate wake/other losses and to identify contributory 3-d atmospheric effects.