A new approach for selection of a suitable wind turbine for a wind farm

Abstract

Selection of a suitable wind turbine (WT) for any wind farm (WF) project holds a key importance from electrical energy production perspective. Every potential site has a distinct wind distribution, which is the prime factor for variation in energy capture by the same WT at different sites. Wake effect in an array of WTs reduces total energy generation in a WF, while the impact of wake varies with mutual distances among WTs and WT placement scheme in the WF. In this paper a new approach to select most suitable WT among various commercially available WTs, for a given site is proposed. Jensen's wake model has been adapted to consider wake effect in the research work presented. In order to account multiple wake in a WF due to variation in wind direction and speed, a Cartesian co-ordinate transformation based approach is proposed. Power output from a WT is calculated using reconstructed power curve from manufacturer data. Cubic spline regression technique has been used to reconstruct the power curve. A new metric ‘economic index’ is introduced in this paper, which is used to select the best possible WT available in the market. Further, the effect of wind power curtailment in the investment of WTs from WF owner's point of view has also been considered in the selection of WT.