Wind turbine power production and annual energy production depend on atmospheric stability and turbulence
Abstract
Using detailed upwind and nacelle-based measurements from a General Electric (GE) 1.5sle model with a 77 m rotor diameter, we calculate power curves and annual energy production (AEP) and explore their sensitivity to different atmospheric parameters to provide guidelines for the use of stability and turbulence filters in segregating power curves. The wind measurements upwind of the turbine include anemometers mounted on a 135 m meteorological tower as well as profiles from a lidar. We calculate power curves for different regimes based on turbulence parameters such as turbulence intensity (TI) as well as atmospheric stability parameters such as the bulk Richardson number (RB). We also calculate AEP with and without these atmospheric filters and highlight differences between the results of these calculations. The power curves for different TI regimes reveal that increased TI undermines power production at wind speeds near rated, but TI increases power production at lower wind speeds at this site, the US Department of Energy (DOE) National Wind Technology Center (NWTC). Similarly, power curves for different RB regimes reveal that periods of stable conditions produce more power at wind speeds near rated and periods of unstable conditions produce more power at lower wind speeds. AEP results suggest that calculations without filtering for these atmosphericmore »
- Authors:
-
[3];
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC)
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- V-Bar, LLC, Golden, CO (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Wind and Water Technologies Office (EE-4W)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1324230
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/JA-5D00-66360
Journal ID: ISSN 2366-7451
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC36-08GO28308
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Wind Energy Science (Online)
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Wind Energy Science (Online); Journal Volume: 1; Journal Issue: 2; Journal ID: ISSN 2366-7451
- Publisher:
- European Wind Energy Association - Copernicus
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 17 WIND ENERGY; wind energy; power curve; atmospheric stability; turbulence intensity; annual energy production
Citation Formats
St. Martin, Clara M., Lundquist, Julie K., Clifton, Andrew, Poulos, Gregory S., and Schreck, Scott J. Wind turbine power production and annual energy production depend on atmospheric stability and turbulence. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.5194/wes-1-221-2016.
St. Martin, Clara M., Lundquist, Julie K., Clifton, Andrew, Poulos, Gregory S., & Schreck, Scott J. Wind turbine power production and annual energy production depend on atmospheric stability and turbulence. United States. https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-1-221-2016
St. Martin, Clara M., Lundquist, Julie K., Clifton, Andrew, Poulos, Gregory S., and Schreck, Scott J. Tue .
"Wind turbine power production and annual energy production depend on atmospheric stability and turbulence". United States. https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-1-221-2016. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1324230.
@article{osti_1324230,
title = {Wind turbine power production and annual energy production depend on atmospheric stability and turbulence},
author = {St. Martin, Clara M. and Lundquist, Julie K. and Clifton, Andrew and Poulos, Gregory S. and Schreck, Scott J.},
abstractNote = {Using detailed upwind and nacelle-based measurements from a General Electric (GE) 1.5sle model with a 77 m rotor diameter, we calculate power curves and annual energy production (AEP) and explore their sensitivity to different atmospheric parameters to provide guidelines for the use of stability and turbulence filters in segregating power curves. The wind measurements upwind of the turbine include anemometers mounted on a 135 m meteorological tower as well as profiles from a lidar. We calculate power curves for different regimes based on turbulence parameters such as turbulence intensity (TI) as well as atmospheric stability parameters such as the bulk Richardson number (RB). We also calculate AEP with and without these atmospheric filters and highlight differences between the results of these calculations. The power curves for different TI regimes reveal that increased TI undermines power production at wind speeds near rated, but TI increases power production at lower wind speeds at this site, the US Department of Energy (DOE) National Wind Technology Center (NWTC). Similarly, power curves for different RB regimes reveal that periods of stable conditions produce more power at wind speeds near rated and periods of unstable conditions produce more power at lower wind speeds. AEP results suggest that calculations without filtering for these atmospheric regimes may overestimate the AEP. Because of statistically significant differences between power curves and AEP calculated with these turbulence and stability filters for this turbine at this site, we suggest implementing an additional step in analyzing power performance data to incorporate effects of atmospheric stability and turbulence across the rotor disk.},
doi = {10.5194/wes-1-221-2016},
journal = {Wind Energy Science (Online)},
number = 2,
volume = 1,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Performance of a Wind-Profiling Lidar in the Region of Wind Turbine Rotor Disks
journal, March 2012
- Aitken, Matthew L.; Rhodes, Michael E.; Lundquist, Julie K.
- Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, Vol. 29, Issue 3
Quantifying Wind Turbine Wake Characteristics from Scanning Remote Sensor Data
journal, April 2014
- Aitken, Matthew L.; Banta, Robert M.; Pichugina, Yelena L.
- Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, Vol. 31, Issue 4
Wind Shear and Uncertainties in Power Curve Measurement and Wind Resources
journal, October 2009
- Antoniou, Ioannis; Pedersen, Søren Markilde; Enevoldsen, Peder Bay
- Wind Engineering, Vol. 33, Issue 5
Implications of Small-Scale Flow Features to Modeling Dispersion over Complex Terrain
journal, March 1996
- Banta, R. M.; Olivier, L. D.; Gudiksen, P. H.
- Journal of Applied Meteorology, Vol. 35, Issue 3
Conically scanning lidar error in complex terrain [Conically scanning lidar error in complex terrain]
journal, May 2009
- Bingöl, Ferhat; Mann, Jakob; Foussekis, Dimitri
- Meteorologische Zeitschrift, Vol. 18, Issue 2
A new formulation for rotor equivalent wind speed for wind resource assessment and wind power forecasting: New formulation for equivalent wind speed
journal, September 2015
- Choukulkar, Aditya; Pichugina, Yelena; Clack, Christopher T. M.
- Wind Energy, Vol. 19, Issue 8
Data Clustering Reveals Climate Impacts on Local Wind Phenomena
journal, August 2012
- Clifton, Andrew; Lundquist, Julie K.
- Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, Vol. 51, Issue 8
Using machine learning to predict wind turbine power output
journal, April 2013
- Clifton, A.; Kilcher, L.; Lundquist, J. K.
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 8, Issue 2
Turbine Inflow Characterization at the National Wind Technology Center
journal, May 2013
- Clifton, Andrew; Schreck, Scott; Scott, George
- Journal of Solar Energy Engineering, Vol. 135, Issue 3
Testing and comparison of lidars for profile and turbulence measurements in wind energy
journal, May 2008
- Courtney, M.; Wagner, R.; Lindelöw, P.
- IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, Vol. 1
Atmospheric Impacts on Power Curves of Multi-Megawatt Offshore Wind Turbines
journal, December 2014
- Dörenkämper, M.; Tambke, J.; Steinfeld, G.
- Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Vol. 555
How to improve the estimation of power curves for wind turbines
journal, January 2008
- Gottschall, Julia; Peinke, Joachim
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 3, Issue 1
Turbulence Correction for Power Curves
book, January 2007
- Kaiser, K.; Langreder, W.; Hohlen, H.
- Wind Energy
Quantifying error of lidar and sodar Doppler beam swinging measurements of wind turbine wakes using computational fluid dynamics
journal, January 2015
- Lundquist, J. K.; Churchfield, M. J.; Lee, S.
- Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, Vol. 8, Issue 2
The influence of non-logarithmic wind speed profiles on potential power output at Danish offshore sites
journal, January 2005
- Motta, M.; Barthelmie, R. J.; Vølund, P.
- Wind Energy, Vol. 8, Issue 2
Turbulent fluxes, stability and shear in the offshore environment: Mesoscale modelling and field observations at FINO1
journal, November 2012
- Muñoz-Esparza, D.; Cañadillas, B.; Neumann, T.
- Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Vol. 4, Issue 6
The Interaction of Katabatic Flow and Mountain Waves. Part I: Observations and Idealized Simulations
journal, June 2000
- Poulos, Gregory S.; Bossert, James E.; McKee, Thomas B.
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 57, Issue 12
The Interaction of Katabatic Flow and Mountain Waves. Part II: Case Study Analysis and Conceptual Model
journal, June 2007
- Poulos, Gregory S.; Bossert, James E.; McKee, Thomas B.
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 64, Issue 6
The Effect of Wind-Turbine Wakes on Summertime US Midwest Atmospheric Wind Profiles as Observed with Ground-Based Doppler Lidar
journal, July 2013
- Rhodes, Michael E.; Lundquist, Julie K.
- Boundary-Layer Meteorology, Vol. 149, Issue 1
Temporal Coherence: A Model for Non-stationarity in Natural and Simulated Wind Records
journal, February 2016
- Rinker, Jennifer M.; Gavin, Henri P.; Clifton, Andrew
- Boundary-Layer Meteorology, Vol. 159, Issue 2
An Introduction to Boundary Layer Meteorology
book, January 1988
- Stull, Roland B.
- Atmospheric and Oceanographic Sciences Library
Influence of Atmospheric Stability on Wind Turbine Power Performance Curves
journal, February 2006
- Sumner, Jonathon; Masson, Christian
- Journal of Solar Energy Engineering, Vol. 128, Issue 4
Wind turbine power and sound in relation to atmospheric stability
journal, January 2008
- van den Berg, G. P.
- Wind Energy, Vol. 11, Issue 2
The modification of wind turbine performance by statistically distinct atmospheric regimes
journal, September 2012
- Vanderwende, B. J.; Lundquist, J. K.
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 7, Issue 3
The influence of the wind speed profile on wind turbine performance measurements
journal, May 2009
- Wagner, Rozenn; Antoniou, Ioannis; Pedersen, Søren M.
- Wind Energy, Vol. 12, Issue 4
Atmospheric stability affects wind turbine power collection
journal, January 2012
- Wharton, Sonia; Lundquist, Julie K.
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 7, Issue 1
Assessing atmospheric stability and its impacts on rotor-disk wind characteristics at an onshore wind farm
journal, July 2011
- Wharton, Sonia; Lundquist, Julie K.
- Wind Energy, Vol. 15, Issue 4, p. 525-546
Characterization of the unsteady flow in the nacelle region of a modern wind turbine
journal, March 2011
- Zahle, Frederik; Sørensen, Niels N.
- Wind Energy, Vol. 14, Issue 2
Turbine Inflow Characterization at the National Wind Technology Center
conference, November 2012
- Clifton, Andrew; Schreck, Scott; Scott, George
- 50th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting including the New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition
Characterization of the unsteady flow in the nacelle region of a modern wind turbine
journal, March 2011
- Zahle, Frederik; Sørensen, Niels N.
- Wind Energy, Vol. 14, Issue 2
How to improve the estimation of power curves for wind turbines
journal, January 2008
- Gottschall, Julia; Peinke, Joachim
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 3, Issue 1
The modification of wind turbine performance by statistically distinct atmospheric regimes
journal, September 2012
- Vanderwende, B. J.; Lundquist, J. K.
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 7, Issue 3
Testing and comparison of lidars for profile and turbulence measurements in wind energy
journal, May 2008
- Courtney, M.; Wagner, R.; Lindelöw, P.
- IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, Vol. 1
Conically scanning lidar error in complex terrain [Conically scanning lidar error in complex terrain]
journal, May 2009
- Bingöl, Ferhat; Mann, Jakob; Foussekis, Dimitri
- Meteorologische Zeitschrift, Vol. 18, Issue 2
Works referencing / citing this record:
Quantification of power losses due to wind turbine wake interactions through SCADA, meteorological and wind LiDAR data: Power losses due to wake interactions through SCADA, met and LiDAR data
journal, June 2017
- El-Asha, Said; Zhan, Lu; Iungo, Giacomo Valerio
- Wind Energy, Vol. 20, Issue 11
Benchmarks for Model Validation based on LiDAR Wake Measurements
journal, July 2019
- Doubrawa, P.; Debnath, M.; Moriarty, P. J.
- Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Vol. 1256
Using field data–based large eddy simulation to understand role of atmospheric stability on energy production of wind turbines
journal, January 2019
- Nielson, Jordan; Bhaganagar, Kiran
- Wind Engineering, Vol. 43, Issue 6
Modeling of the atmospheric boundary layer under stability stratification for wind turbine wake production
journal, October 2019
- Ichenial, Mohamed Marouan; El-Hajjaji, Abdellah; Khamlichi, Abdellatif
- Wind Engineering
Modified Power Curves for Prediction of Power Output of Wind Farms
journal, May 2019
- Vahidzadeh, Mohsen; Markfort, Corey D.
- Energies, Vol. 12, Issue 9
An Induction Curve Model for Prediction of Power Output of Wind Turbines in Complex Conditions
journal, February 2020
- Vahidzadeh, Mohsen; Markfort, Corey D.
- Energies, Vol. 13, Issue 4
Characterization of Turbulence in Wind Turbine Wakes under Different Stability Conditions from Static Doppler LiDAR Measurements
journal, March 2017
- Kumer, Valerie-Marie; Reuder, Joachim; Oftedal Eikill, Rannveig
- Remote Sensing, Vol. 9, Issue 3
Atmospheric turbulence affects wind turbine nacelle transfer functions
posted_content, December 2016
- St. Martin, Clara M.; Lundquist, Julie K.; Clifton, Andrew
- Wind Energy Science Discussions
Free-flow wind speed from a blade-mounted flow sensor
journal, January 2018
- Pedersen, Mads Mølgaard; Larsen, Torben Juul; Madsen, Helge Aagaard
- Wind Energy Science, Vol. 3, Issue 1
More accurate aeroelastic wind-turbine load simulations using detailed inflow information
journal, January 2019
- Pedersen, Mads Mølgaard; Larsen, Torben Juul; Madsen, Helge Aagaard
- Wind Energy Science, Vol. 4, Issue 2
The effect of wind direction shear on turbine performance in a wind farm in central Iowa
journal, January 2020
- Sanchez Gomez, Miguel; Lundquist, Julie K.
- Wind Energy Science, Vol. 5, Issue 1
Atmospheric turbulence affects wind turbine nacelle transfer functions
journal, January 2017
- St. Martin, Clara M.; Lundquist, Julie K.; Clifton, Andrew
- Wind Energy Science, Vol. 2, Issue 1