ECN publication
Title:
Active Wake Control: loads trends
 
Author(s):
 
Published by: Publication date:
ECN Wind Energy 13-5-2015
 
ECN report number: Document type:
ECN-E--15-004 ECN publication
 
Number of pages: Full text:
25 Download PDF  

Abstract:
Active Wake Control (AWC) is a strategy, developed and patented by ECN, for operating wind farms in an economically optimal manner. It makes use of the wake interactions between the wind turbines to maximize the power production of the whole wind farm and/or reduce the loading of the individual wind turbines. The wakes are controlled by either pitching the blades of upstream wind turbines (pitch-based AWC), thereby increasing the wind velocity in the wake, or by misaligning the rotors with the wind (yaw-based AWC), thereby moving the wakes aside from the downstream wind turbines. The purpose of this report is to analyse the effect of AWC on the loads of the wind turbines. It provides insight into the factors that contribute to these loads (yaw misalignment, turbulence intensity, wake location, wake deficit profile, etc). The conclusions made in this report indicate that it seems possible to apply yaw-based AWC to increase the power capture while keeping the DEL within the design envelope. This work is performed within the project “Wind Farm Wake Modelling, Fatigue Loads and Control”, partially sponsored by the Far and Large Offshore Wind (FLOW) programme of the Dutch government (project number P201102-004-ECN).


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