Data analysis and simulation of the Lillgrund wind farm

Abstract

AbstractThe power production of the Lillgrund wind farm has been investigated by means of SCADA data covering almost 10 years of operation, wake models and numerical simulation tools, such as WindSim, OpenFOAM and ORFEUS. The analysis of the SCADA data provided the quantification of wake losses and of blockage effects, results that enable a benchmark to assess the uncertainty of other numerical methods of industrial use. The results have been analysed in terms of global array efficiency for different wind directions, wind velocity and stratification conditions. A comparison of the present results with the Jensen and Ainsle models indicated that the two used wake models are affected by an error of about 8–10% in the estimation of the array efficiency, while the error does not vary significantly when using numerical tools such as ORFEUS, WindSim and OpenFOAM. By comparing wind statistics available before the park construction, an assessment of the blockage of the Lillgrund farm was performed with contrasting results from the other numerical tools, highlighting how challenging is to assess farm blockage with current industrial settings.