Wind farm simulation and layout optimization in complex terrain : preprint / Jeffery Allen, Ryan King, and Garrett Barter.

Format:

Book

Government document

Author/Creator:

Allen, Jeffery, author.

Contributor:

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (U.S.), issuing body.

Series:

Conference paper (National Renewable Energy Laboratory (U.S.)) ; 2C00-75033.

NREL/CP ; 2C00-75033

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Wind power--Simulation methods.

Wind power.

Wind power plants--Mathematical models.

Wind power plants.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (13 pages) : color illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Golden, CO : National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2020.

Summary:

This work reports on incorporating complex terrain into wind farm simulations for the purpose of layout optimization. Adding complex terrain boundary conditions to NREL's medium fidelity computational fluid dynamics model, WindSE, produces significant separation, flow curvature, and speedup effects that would otherwise be difficult to capture with lower-fidelity models or a flat-terrain assumption. These flow features, in turn, can significantly impact the optimal turbine array layout. We demonstrate the impact of complex terrain on flow in both an idealized and real-world setting, and discuss modifications to the code that enable gradient-based optimization using terrain-aware adjoint gradients. Through several optimization case studies, we show that the layout optimization process takes advantage of speedup effects on terrain high points, and leverages flow curvature effects that modify wake trajectories. This yields substantial power improvements over gridded layouts, and hints at future research directions in simulation and optimization for wake trajectories in complex terrain.

Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Background

3. Complex terrain validation study

4. Layout optimization case study

5. Conclusion.

Notes:

Presented at the North American Wind Energy Academy (NAWEA)/WindTech 2019, 14-16 October 2019, Amherst, Massachusetts.

"March 2020."

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (NREL, viewed on Sept. 18, 2020).

OCLC:

1196187142

Publisher Number:

0000-0001-7757-8853 orcid

1603879 OSTI ID

Access Restriction:

Publicly released