Large-eddy simulation of upwind-hill effects on wind-turbine wakes and power performance

Abstract

The present study utilizes high-fidelity large-eddy simulation (LES) to examine the upwind-hill impacts on wind-turbine wakes and power performance. Both the LES and Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) show good agreement with the experimental results of average velocity, whereas the LES exhibits great improvements in predicting turbulence characteristics. In turbine simulations, the wake half-width shows different behaviors in the hill and flat cases. The Gaussian and cosine distributions are good representations of the unskewed profiles of velocity deficit, although some discrepancies are seen around the wake edges. However, the spanwise profiles of velocity deficit become skewed in some hill cases. The non-zero pressure gradient (NZPG) model is employed to predict the velocity deficit in the wakes of a hilltop-sited turbine, and a generalized condition is proposed so that the NZPG model can work in the scenario where the pressure gradients at the turbine location or in its near wakes are not zero. Appropriately assigning initial values for the NZPG model is important for its successful use. The presence of the upwind hill has an adverse influence on the power output of the hilltop-sited turbine. The installation of wind turbines in the valley region near upwind hills is not recommended due to the limited wind-energy resources and intense turbulence levels.