TU Delft Leads Groundbreaking Offshore Wind Power Control Study
A groundbreaking study, 'A dynamic open-source model to investigate wake dynamics in response to wind farm flow control strategies', has been published in Wind Energy Science. Led by researchers from TU Delft and other institutions, the project introduces OFF, a new open-source model to enhance offshore wind power control strategies.
OFF, developed by Pedro Santos, Jeremy Bryant, Paul Fleming, and Lucy Y. Pao, empowers the wind energy community to create advanced control strategies. It captures high-frequency dynamics with better correlation and lower error than steady-state models, improving prediction of power output and turbine interactions, particularly over short time scales.
OFF enhances existing models like OnWARDS, FLORIDyn, and FLORIS by incorporating time-dependent dynamics. It balances energy gains with reduced turbine wear, benefiting both scientists and industry. Yaw movements depend on controller settings, balancing power gains with actuator usage. The case study used a 24-hour wind direction time series and verified subsets using Large-Eddy Simulation (LES). Compared to LES, OFF predicts short-term turbine power fluctuations more accurately.
The study, published in Wind Energy Science, demonstrates the potential of OFF in advancing offshore wind power control strategies. By improving prediction accuracy and balancing energy gains with reduced wear, OFF benefits both research and industry. The open-source nature of the model encourages further development and collaboration within the wind energy community.
