Influence of wind farm area dimension on wakes and power production

Abstract

During wind farm planning, the farm layout is generally optimized to minimize the wake losses, and thereby maximize the energy production. However, the scope of layout design itself depends on the specified wind farm land-shape. In this paper, a novel framework is developed to explore how the farm land-shape influences the output potential of a site under a given wind farm area directional orientation or for a set of sample land-shapes with the fixed land area. The full free stream wind speed will be utilized by using definite point selection (DPS) criteria. The DPS is then represented as a function of the wind farm area shape and land orientation. Three types of wind farm land with different dimensions and same areas are considered. The effect of the wake on wind farm power production is calculated. The extracted power is measured for all land shapes. It is concluded that the diamond shaped wind farm is the most suitable, irrespective of regular or irregular layouts of the farm following the square shape.