DC6: Wind Farm Optimization and Operation

Objectives

Operating multiple AWEs together as a plant is crucial to generate grid scale power. Furthermore, maximizing the density (aircraft per unit area) is important for achieving high land-use efficiency and lower plant costs. However, there are several challenges and opportunities that will be explored. First plant level control regulation strategies are needed to avoid collisions. An important factor is the turbulence, changes in wind direction and wake interaction effects that can impact both path deviations and power production. However, unlike conventional turbines, AWE can vary the flight path and height to mitigate these effects. This project will investigate how the combination of plant siting optimization and plant regulation strategies can be leveraged to achieve optimized configurations, over a range of densities. The DC will create an AWE plant model that incorporates transient wind conditions and wake interaction effects. Generic plant configurations will be used to investigate optimal control strategies over a range of densities. Finally, siting optimization will be used in conjunction with these optimal regulation strategies to explore and identify optimal plant configurations. This work will show how unsteady flow conditions, along with wake interactions will impact both the power production, but the reliability of the plant. Furthermore, this research will explore how high density configurations can be achieved with minimal economic and energy costs.

Expected Results

The DC will produce an AWE wind farm simulator; plant level control strategies for efficient and reliable plant operation; plant siting optimization methods for AWE based plants.

Supervisory team

Alessandro Croce is main supervisor, Mac Gaunaa and David Rudolph are co-supervisors.

Planned secondments

Jointly between TU Delft and Kitepower (M28-M33) to collaborate with DC5 and DC7 on optimal plant design and operation, Kitepower provides additional opportunities to test controller on prototypes. Supervised by Roland Schmehl and Claudio Vergara.