How far the wake of a wind farm can persist for?
Guodan Dong, Zhaobin Li, J. L. Qin, Xiaolei Yang
Abstract
With the increased penetration of wind energy in our nation’s energy portfolio, wind farms are placed in a way close to each other. Thus, their wakes have to be fully considered in the design and operation of a wind farm. In this study, we investigate the wake of a wind farm using large-eddy simulation with wind turbine rotor modelled by the actuator disk model. The simulated results show that the wake of a wind farm can persist for a long distance in its downstream. For the considered wind farm layout, the velocity in the wake recovers 95% of that of the undisturbed inflow at 55 rotor diameters downstream from its last row, suggesting that the wake of a wind farm should be fully considered in the optimal design and operation for its downstream wind farms.