WAKE INDUCED POWER DEFICIT ANALYSIS ON WIND TURBINES IN FORESTED MODERATELY COMPLEX TERRAIN USING SCADA DATA

Abstract: Over the last few decades, wind power has shown a continuous and significant developmentin the energy market globally. Having reached a certain level in both technologyand in dimensions, the role of optimizing wind turbines as well as wind farms hasbecome an additional aspect to future development and research. Since turbine wakescan cause significant power deficits within a farm, research in this area has the potentialfor large improvements in wind farm design. A wake is described as the downstream flow behind the rotor of an operating windturbine. The two main characteristics of wakes are a velocity (momentum) deficit and anincreased turbulence level. The velocity deficit behind the upwind turbine results in apower loss of the downstream turbines, whereas the higher turbulence causes additionalloads on the downstream turbines’ structures resulting in fatigue problems. The study of wakes is a complex topic, they are influenced by an interconnection of anumber of parameters like ambient wind speed and turbulence, atmospheric stabilityconditions (stable, unstable, and neutral), the turbines’ operational characteristics, andthe terrain properties. In order to assess the power deficits affected by wake interaction between turbines,an analysis can be realized by processing SCADA data of turbines in a wind farm. The collected data is treated by a comprehensive filtration process, excluding events of icing, curtailment, faults, etc. and by grouping into different atmospheric conditions, windspeed intervals and wind speed sectors. Finally, power deficit values, as a function ofwind direction, are calculated and quantified, and thereafter analyzed to assess the wakebehavior at different conditions for different cases.In this thesis, the wake-induced power deficit has been investigated in a specificstudy case for three pairs of two neighboring turbines in a forested moderately complexterrain using SCADA data. The production losses amounted between the range of 32% to 67% for the specific site with turbine spacing around 4D. The obtained results werepartially unsatisfactory, caused by the reasons of inaccurate wind direction values due toyaw misalignment issues and challenging separation into different stability conditions. Moreover, the power deficits showed a clear reduction of losses with increasing windspeed. A conclusion regarding the differences between stable and near neutral conditionscould not be determined from the data.