A wind turbine wake in changing atmospheric conditions: LES and lidar measurements

Abstract

This work aims to reproduce the measured atmospheric conditions during one day of the CWEX-11 campaign, with a transient LES. The selected period includes several interesting atmospheric conditions for wind power generation such as a nocturnal low-level jet, a highly turbulent convective daytime boundary layer, as well as a distinct evening transition between daytime and nocturnal boundary layers. To include synoptic conditions, large-scale forcing profiles for the LES were derived from a mesoscale simulation with the WRF model. A comparison with lidar measurements shows that the trend of the wind conditions and the diurnal cycle is well replicated by the model chain. Selected periods of the day are simulated with the NREL 5MW turbine model, followed by a qualitative comparison of measured and simulated wakes. We find a strong dependency of the meandering and the shape of the wake on wind profile and turbulence, while a categorization by Obukhov length is less representative for the different conditions. As the veer in the wind profile increases, the deviation of the wind direction at hub height from the direction of the largest wake impact also increases.