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| Reference Number | EP/Z536131/1 | |
| Title | CBET-EPSRC: Unwinding entrainment processes in wind farm to wind farm interactions | |
| Status | Started | |
| Energy Categories | Renewable Energy Sources (Wind Energy) 100%; | |
| Research Types | Applied Research and Development 100% | |
| Science and Technology Fields | ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering) 100% | |
| UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation | Not Cross-cutting 80%; Other (Energy technology information dissemination) 20%; |
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| Principal Investigator |
Dr K Steiros Imperial College London |
|
| Award Type | Standard | |
| Funding Source | EPSRC | |
| Start Date | 01 November 2025 | |
| End Date | 31 October 2028 | |
| Duration | 36 months | |
| Total Grant Value | £435,875 | |
| Industrial Sectors | Process engineering | |
| Region | London | |
| Programme | NC : Engineering | |
| Investigators | Principal Investigator | Dr K Steiros , Imperial College London |
| Web Site | ||
| Objectives | ||
| Abstract | The rapid expansion of the wind energy sector has led to increasingly large and clustered wind farms, sitting at close proximity to each other. Often new wind farms are built upstream of already existing ones, reducing the power production of the farms that were installed first, together with the turbine lifespan due to increased loads. Examples of that are the clustered farms in the North Sea, and the US great planes. The wind turbines in a farm generate wakes which coalesce, forming a massive turbulent air flow at the outlet of the farm, with significant mean wind speed deficits and enhanced turbulence. This "combined" flow propagates downstream for tens of kilometres, reaching subsequent farms. Therefore, farm-to-farm aerodynamic interactions are expected to become a major challenge in the wind industry, with wind farms "stealing the wind" from each other, lowering the overall power production. To prevent this, proper planning guidelines need to be developed. These should ensure that the wind farm spacing is adequate, so that the reduced kinetic energy of the wind at the wake of a farm has had sufficient time to recover, before reaching subsequent farms, and new wind turbine and wind farm arrangements are developed that minimize the production of very large wind wake deficits. However, at present, the wind farm-to-farm wake production and interaction is poorly understood, and thus there is a critical need for developing new knowledge. To address this issue, the proposed research will investigate the problem of successive wind farm wake interactions and develop reduced-order representations of use to industry and national laboratories. Specifically, we will quantify and develop models for (i) the production and recovery of momentum deficit that a single farm generates at its outflow, and (ii) its interaction with downstream farms. A combination of four research teams in three countries will perform detailed large- and small-scale laboratory experiments and high-fidelity numerical simulations that will be used to consider a multitude of real-world conditions, including changes in ground surface roughness, the Coriolis force, thermal stratification, global blockage and entrainment between the atmospheric boundary layer and the wind farm wake. The results will be complemented by wind farm field data, provided from industrial partners. The datasets will be used to develop and test new wind farm flow models that are able to capture the important flow physics, yet are computationally inexpensive, i.e. designed to run in laptop computers of use to industry when developing preliminary analyses in future wind farm projects | |
| Data | No related datasets |
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| Projects | No related projects |
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| Publications | No related publications |
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| Added to Database | 14/01/26 | |
