Offshore Turbine Wake Power Losses: Is Turbine Separation Significant?

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a parametric study of wind turbine wake effects in a hypothetical offshore wind farm with varying turbine separation using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model. Results are analyzed from a simulated 40 turbine farm with 60 layout options, 4 wind speeds and 10° directional bins. Results show that increasing turbine separation in one or both directions leads to greater power generation, though this effect diminishes for separations above 8 diameters. Similarly, turbulence intensity is shown to decrease with increases in turbine separation but with little variation beyond 8 diameters. For 3 out of 4 wind speeds when combined with a representative UK offshore wind rose the farm was shown to have an optimal layout orientation along an axis 350°-170°, though the difference in power produced between orientation angles was less than between changes in turbine separation.