Abstract
In the present study, numerical wind simulation was conducted by reproducing the realistic topography near wind turbine sites with high spatial resolutions and using the Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) technique. The topography near wind turbine sites serves as the origin of the terrain-induced turbulence. The obtained numerical simulation results showed that the terrain-induced turbulence is generated at a small terrain feature located upstream of the wind turbine. The generated terrain-induced turbulence affects the wind turbine directly. The wind speed and wind direction at the wind turbine site are significantly changed with time. In the present study, a combination of the series of wind simulation results and on-site operation experience led to a decision to adopt an “automatic shutdown program”. Here, an “automatic shutdown program” means the automatic suspension of wind turbine operation based on the wind speed and wind direction meeting the conditions associated with significant effects of terrain-induced turbulence at a wind turbine site. The adoption of the “automatic shutdown program” has successfully led to a large reduction in the number of occurrences of wind turbine damage, thus, creating major positive economic effects.
Highlights
It has been reported that the availability factors of wind turbines on wind farms situated on complex terrain fall short of those originally projected; that is, reports of damage and breakage of the exteriors and interiors of wind turbines, as well as wind turbines with, notably, low power output have surfaced
The main cause of these problems is that small variations in the topographical relief in the vicinity of wind turbines serve as the origin of turbulence
The converting the performance of the two wind turbines combined from the two years preceding and following major economic effects have been realized based on converting the performance of the two the two years following the adoption of the “automatic shutdown program” into the performance of wind turbines combined from the two years preceding and the two years following the adoption of a single wind turbine per year: the “automatic shutdown program” into the performance of a single wind turbine per year: (1) A reduction in the repair costs by 9.322 million yen per year per wind turbine, (1) A reduction in the repair costs by 9.322 million yen per year per wind turbine, (2) An increase in the availability factor by 8.05% (87.3%→95.4%), and
Summary
One technical issue, which needs to be resolved in the near future in the field of wind power generation, is to establish a numerical wind prediction technique, which allows; (1) accurate wind resource assessment for wind turbine micro-siting [1,2,3,4], and (2) identification of local wind risks to wind turbines, such as wind turbine wake [5,6] and terrain-induced turbulence [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. The core technology of the RIAM-COMPACT is under continuous development at the Research Institute for Applied Mechanics (RIAM), Kyushu University. The present paper will discuss a specific example of a wind-risk (terrain-induced turbulence) diagnosis using the RIAM-COMPACT natural terrain version software (Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) modeling)
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