IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v59y2013icp128-135.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A study of the performance benefits of closely-spaced lateral wind farm configurations

Author

Listed:
  • McTavish, S.
  • Feszty, D.
  • Nitzsche, F.

Abstract

Scaled wind turbine experiments were conducted in order to evaluate the beneficial effect of closely-spaced lateral wind turbine configurations on the performance of a wind farm. Two outer wind turbines were spaced apart with a particular gap distance and the longitudinal setback of a central rotor was varied at each gap width. The turbine placement resulted in tip-to-tip separation distances that ranged from 1 diameter (D) to 0.25D. Additionally, the performance of a wind farm layout in rough and smooth boundary layers, designed to mimic onshore and offshore conditions, respectively, was evaluated. It was observed that a narrow gap between several laterally-aligned rotors creates an in-field blockage effect that results in beneficial flow acceleration through the gap. This increase in speed increases the power output of the central turbine when its longitudinal setback is between 0D and 2.5D. A cumulative increase in power output of 17% was observed when 3 rotors were aligned in a lateral plane with a blade tip separation of 0.5D or 0.25D, compared to the same number of rotors in isolation. While the benefits of closely-spaced wind turbines were observed in both of the tested boundary layers, the performance benefits with a smooth boundary layer were smaller than with a rough boundary layer. These results may lead to new wind farm design methodologies for certain topology- and wind distribution-specific sites and suggest that wind turbines can be closely-spaced in the lateral direction in order to obtain substantial increases in power.

Suggested Citation

  • McTavish, S. & Feszty, D. & Nitzsche, F., 2013. "A study of the performance benefits of closely-spaced lateral wind farm configurations," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 128-135.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:59:y:2013:i:c:p:128-135
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2013.03.032
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148113001882
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2013.03.032?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hossain, M.Z. & Hirahara, H. & Nonomura, Y. & Kawahashi, M., 2007. "The wake structure in a 2D grid installation of the horizontal axis micro wind turbines," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(13), pages 2247-2267.
    2. Adaramola, M.S. & Krogstad, P.-Å., 2011. "Experimental investigation of wake effects on wind turbine performance," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 2078-2086.
    3. Bahaj, A.S. & Molland, A.F. & Chaplin, J.R. & Batten, W.M.J., 2007. "Power and thrust measurements of marine current turbines under various hydrodynamic flow conditions in a cavitation tunnel and a towing tank," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 407-426.
    4. Myers, L.E. & Bahaj, A.S., 2012. "An experimental investigation simulating flow effects in first generation marine current energy converter arrays," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 28-36.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Li, B. & Zhou, D.L. & Wang, Y. & Shuai, Y. & Liu, Q.Z. & Cai, W.H., 2020. "The design of a small lab-scale wind turbine model with high performance similarity to its utility-scale prototype," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 435-444.
    2. Martín-San-Román, Raquel & Benito-Cia, Pablo & Azcona-Armendáriz, José & Cuerva-Tejero, Alvaro, 2021. "Validation of a free vortex filament wake module for the integrated simulation of multi-rotor wind turbines," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1706-1718.
    3. Meyer Forsting, Alexander R. & Navarro Diaz, Gonzalo P. & Segalini, Antonio & Andersen, Søren J. & Ivanell, Stefan, 2023. "On the accuracy of predicting wind-farm blockage," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 114-129.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stephen Nash & Agnieszka I. Olbert & Michael Hartnett, 2015. "Towards a Low-Cost Modelling System for Optimising the Layout of Tidal Turbine Arrays," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-19, November.
    2. Ahmadian, Reza & Falconer, Roger A., 2012. "Assessment of array shape of tidal stream turbines on hydro-environmental impacts and power output," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 318-327.
    3. Fallon, D. & Hartnett, M. & Olbert, A. & Nash, S., 2014. "The effects of array configuration on the hydro-environmental impacts of tidal turbines," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 10-25.
    4. Bahaj, A.S. & Myers, L.E., 2013. "Shaping array design of marine current energy converters through scaled experimental analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 83-94.
    5. Edmunds, Matt & Williams, Alison J. & Masters, Ian & Banerjee, Arindam & VanZwieten, James H., 2020. "A spatially nonlinear generalised actuator disk model for the simulation of horizontal axis wind and tidal turbines," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    6. Koh, W.X.M. & Ng, E.Y.K., 2017. "A CFD study on the performance of a tidal turbine under various flow and blockage conditions," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 124-137.
    7. Gaurier, Benoît & Carlier, Clément & Germain, Grégory & Pinon, Grégory & Rivoalen, Elie, 2020. "Three tidal turbines in interaction: An experimental study of turbulence intensity effects on wakes and turbine performance," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 1150-1164.
    8. Li, Binghui & de Queiroz, Anderson Rodrigo & DeCarolis, Joseph F. & Bane, John & He, Ruoying & Keeler, Andrew G. & Neary, Vincent S., 2017. "The economics of electricity generation from Gulf Stream currents," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 649-658.
    9. Maduka, Maduka & Li, Chi Wai, 2022. "Experimental evaluation of power performance and wake characteristics of twin flanged duct turbines in tandem under bi-directional tidal flows," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 1543-1567.
    10. Verbeek, M.C. & Labeur, R.J. & Uijttewaal, W.S.J., 2021. "The performance of a weir-mounted tidal turbine: An experimental investigation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 64-75.
    11. Sutherland, Duncan & Ordonez-Sanchez, Stephanie & Belmont, Michael R. & Moon, Ian & Steynor, Jeffrey & Davey, Thomas & Bruce, Tom, 2018. "Experimental optimisation of power for large arrays of cross-flow tidal turbines," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 116(PA), pages 685-696.
    12. Bai, Guanghui & Li, Wei & Chang, Hao & Li, Guojun, 2016. "The effect of tidal current directions on the optimal design and hydrodynamic performance of a three-turbine system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 48-54.
    13. Riglin, Jacob & Daskiran, Cosan & Jonas, Joseph & Schleicher, W. Chris & Oztekin, Alparslan, 2016. "Hydrokinetic turbine array characteristics for river applications and spatially restricted flows," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 274-283.
    14. Modali, Pranav K. & Vinod, Ashwin & Banerjee, Arindam, 2021. "Towards a better understanding of yawed turbine wake for efficient wake steering in tidal arrays," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 482-494.
    15. Matevz Pintar & Athanasios J. Kolios, 2013. "Design of a Novel Experimental Facility for Testing of Tidal Arrays," Energies, MDPI, vol. 6(8), pages 1-17, August.
    16. Chen, Yaling & Lin, Binliang & Lin, Jie & Wang, Shujie, 2017. "Experimental study of wake structure behind a horizontal axis tidal stream turbine," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 82-96.
    17. Guo, Qiang & Zhou, Lingjiu & Wang, Zhengwei, 2015. "Comparison of BEM-CFD and full rotor geometry simulations for the performance and flow field of a marine current turbine," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 640-648.
    18. Kai-Wern Ng & Wei-Haur Lam & Khai-Ching Ng, 2013. "2002–2012: 10 Years of Research Progress in Horizontal-Axis Marine Current Turbines," Energies, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-30, March.
    19. Bai, Guanghui & Li, Jun & Fan, Pengfei & Li, Guojun, 2013. "Numerical investigations of the effects of different arrays on power extractions of horizontal axis tidal current turbines," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 180-186.
    20. Niebuhr, C.M. & Schmidt, S. & van Dijk, M. & Smith, L. & Neary, V.S., 2022. "A review of commercial numerical modelling approaches for axial hydrokinetic turbine wake analysis in channel flow," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:59:y:2013:i:c:p:128-135. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.