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The impact of wake steering control strategy on power production and loads for a cluster of two wind turbines is analysed in this work. The power and loads data base are generated by means of high resolution simulations using an ALM-LES model along with an aeroelastic code for multibody analysis, while the optimal yaw misalignment values are obtained, for different wind directions and performance requirements, using a weighted cost function that accounts for both power production and fatigue damage on main wind turbine components. The sensitivity of the results regarding the inflow conditions, in terms of turbulence intensity, is also analysed. The overall results show that when accounting for both power production and fatigue damage, greater values of optimal yaw misalignment are obtained. This indicates that standard yaw misalignment strategies that accounts only for power production reduce at the same time the loading damage on the wind turbine, compared to greedy configuration.

Wind energy is expanding rapidly worldwide, being horizontal axis wind turbines the technology of larger installed capacity. Modern multi-MW wind turbines have a torque controller and a collective pitch controller to control their power output, particularly when the wind speed is greater than the rated one, or when it is required to down-regulate the turbines’ production. In this work we show results of a validated numerical method [1], based on a Large Eddy Simulation-Actuator Line Model framework, applied to evaluate active power control on a real 7.7MW [2][3] onshore wind farm of Uruguay. We describe the implementation of these controllers in the caffa3d solver [4] and present the methodology we applied to obtain the controller parameters, such as the gain scheduling of the closed loop Proportional-Integral pitch controller. For validation, the simulation results are compared with 1Hz data obtained from the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System of the wind farm, focusing on the temporal evolution of the following variables: wind velocity, rotor angular speed, pitch, aerodynamic and electric torque and power. We analyze the Active Power Control response under different de-rate signals, both constant and time-varying, and subject to two wind profiles and two different wind directions, one of them with significant influence of wakes on one wind turbine. The dependence of the wake on the de-rate value is also evaluated, assessing the streamwise velocity component and the turbulence intensity in the wake.

Recently, the Actuator Line Model (ALM) has been evaluated with coarser resolution and larger time steps than what is generally recommended, taking into account an atmospheric sheared and turbulent inflow condition. The aim of the present paper is to continue these studies, assessing the capability of the ALM to represent the wind turbines' interactions in an onshore wind farm. The 'Libertad' wind farm, which consists of four 1.9MW Vestas V100 wind turbines, was simulated considering different wind directions, and the results were compared with the wind farm SCADA data, finding good agreement between them. A sensitivity analysis was performed to evaluate the influence of the spatial resolution, finding acceptable agreement, although some differences were found. It is believed that these differences are due to the characteristics of the different Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) simulations taken as inflow condition (precursor simulations).

Actuator models have been used to represent the presence of wind turbines in a simulation in the past few years. The Actuator Line Model (ALM) has shown to reproduce with reasonable accuracy the wind flow through wind turbines under different operational conditions. Nevertheless, there are not many simulations of wind farms performed with the ALM mainly because of its computational cost. The aim of the present paper is to evaluate the ALM in spatial resolutions coarser than what is generally recommended, also using larger time steps, in a simulation of a real wind farm. To accomplish this, simulations of one row of Horns Rev wind farm are performed, for different wind directions. It is concluded that the ALM is able to capture the main features of the interaction between wind turbines relaxing its resolution requirements. A sensitivity analysis is performed to assess the influence of the smearing factor and the spatial resolution.

Wind energy has become cost competitive in recent years for several reasons. Among them, wind turbines have become more efficient, increasing its size, both rotor diameter and tower height. This growth in size makes the prediction of the wind flow through wind turbines more challenging. To avoid the computational cost related to resolve the blade boundary layer as well as the atmospheric boundary layer, actuator models have been proposed in the past few years. Among them, the Actuator Line Model (ALM) has shown to reproduce with reasonable accuracy the wind flow in the wake of a wind turbine with moderately computational cost. However, its use to simulate the flow through wind farms requires a spatial resolution and a time step that makes it unaffordable in some cases. The present paper aims to assess the ALM with coarser resolution and larger time step than what is generally recommended, taking into account an atmospheric sheared and turbulent inflow condition and comparing the results with the Actuator Disk Model with Rotation (ADM-R) and experimental data. To accomplish this, a well known wind tunnel campaign is considered as validation case.