Neighborhood Effects in Wind Farm Performance: A Regression Approach

The optimization of turbine density in wind farms entails a trade-off between the usage of scarce, expensive land and power losses through turbine wake effects. A quantification and prediction of the wake effect, however, is challenging because of the complex aerodynamic nature of the interdependencies of turbines. In this paper, we propose a parsimonious data driven regression wake model that can be used to predict production losses of existing and potential wind farms. Motivated by simple engineering wake models, the predicting variables are wind speed, the turbine alignment angle, and distance. By utilizing data from two wind farms in Germany, we show that our models can compete with the standard Jensen model in predicting wake effect losses. A scenario analysis reveals that a distance between turbines can be reduced by up to three times the rotor size, without entailing substantial production losses. In contrast, an unfavorable configuration of turbines with respect to the main wind direction can result in production losses that are much higher than in an optimal case.