Multi-Scale Simulation of a Frontal Passage Through a Wind Turbine Array

Abstract:

Understanding the impacts of meteorological events such as frontal passages on wind farms is critical to wind plant design, operation, and the integration of wind energy into the electricity grid. However, simulation frameworks that can capture turbine-airflow interactions in complex atmospheric and environmental conditions are in early stages of development and not yet widely incorporated into wind energy simulation workflows. In this work, we demonstrate the applicability of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in a multiple-nested-domain setup to downscale a mesoscale frontal passage into a large-eddy simulation, within which an array of wind turbines are modeled using a generalized actuator disk approach. Simulated wind turbine wakes and (time-averaged) power production are compared with novel radar-based wake observations, and turbine power data to demonstrate the efficacy of the simulation framework to capture essential characteristics of the frontal passage, including changes of wind speed, direction, and turbulence content, as well as the impacts of the flow variability on the array of operating turbines. Best practices, limitations, and pathways for improvements of this multiscale simulation approach are discussed.