Search

Wind farm control is an active and growing field of research in which the control actions of individual turbines in a farm are coordinated, accounting for inter-turbine aerodynamic interaction, to improve the overall performance of the wind farm and to reduce costs. The primary objectives of wind farm control include increasing power production, reducing turbine loads, and providing electricity grid support services. Additional objectives include improving reliability or reducing external impacts to the environment and communities. In 2019, a European research project (FarmConners) was started with the main goal of providing an overview of the state-of-the-art in wind farm control, identifying consensus of research findings, data sets, and best practices, providing a summary of the main research challenges, and establishing a roadmap on how to address these challenges. Complementary to the FarmConners project, an IEA Wind Topical Expert Meeting (TEM) and two rounds of surveys among experts were performed. From these events we can clearly identify an interest in more public validation campaigns. Additionally, a deeper understanding of the mechanical loads and the uncertainties concerning the effectiveness of wind farm control are considered two major research gaps.

Derating of individual turbines is one of the options to implement wind farm performance optimization, although there are different ways to proceed with such derating at the turbine control level. The present paper develops an option based on the minimal thrust coefficient in accordance with the Cp and C t contour levels. This strategy is compared for the region below rated wind speed with two other strategies where either the pitch or the tip speed ratio are maintained at their maximum C p values from normal operation. The study concludes that maintaining the pitch at the optimal value from normal operation produces poorer performance from the thrust and the loads perspective. Practical implementation issues have also been detected.