An Innovative Method to Evaluate the Real Performance of Wind Turbines With Respect to the Manufacturer Power Curve: Case Study from Mauritania

Abstract

The power-wind speed curve of a Wind Turbine (WT) is measured by the manufacturer in ideal conditions, and the wind speed is detected at the entrance of the WT rotor. However, in wind power plants, this quantity is rarely available because, generally, the wind speed is measured by an anemometer behind the WT. In this case, this value is lower than the wind speed at the entrance of the WT rotor. As a result, the WT performance, evaluated using these wind speed data, may be unrealistic. Thus, their correction is performed by a technique similar to instrument calibration in which the data distribution is compared with the wind speed of the manufacturer's power curve. In this context, the present work proposes an innovative method to correctly assess the performance of WTs. In particular, it is based on the manufacturer curve, correcting the wind speeds measured behind the WTs rotor. The correction is applied to one WT (rated power =2MW) of a wind farm in Mauritania.