Modeling of Blockage and Wake Effect: Comparison with Field data

Abstract

We apply engineering approaches for estimating the induction zone in front of a wind turbine and escalating to the global blockage at wind farm and cluster of farms scale as well accounting for wind farm wake. The methods include the vortex cylinder model and the self-similar model for blockage, and Jensen and Eddy-viscosity models for the wake estimation. To calibrate each model, Reynold Average Navier-Stokes with Actuator disc simulations are employed. Every model’s efficacy is assessed in comparison to the validation data of an operated wind farm in Scotland with more than 100 turbines of 10 MW each. We also examine the widely used process within the wind industry for transferring the application of calibrated wake and blockage models from one wind farm. According to our simulation analysis, blockage causes sideways acceleration and upstream slowdown. This also result in a gradient in the power produced by each turbine on the farm, which, if not properly accounted for, appears to be a wake model constraint. Furthermore, the response of different turbine type in another environment is not effectively predicted by the blockage and wake model, which is based on a particular turbine type and environment.