The effects of turbulent flow on wind turbine performance evaluation

Abstract

Most of the world's wind turbines operate under various turbulent wind conditions. Turbulent wind is a big source of uncertainty, and could cause, if unaddressed, significant variation from a turbine's calculated efficiency and even its destruction. Turbulent flow in wind turbines has a profound effect on various aspects including structural load, estimation of a site's energy potential, calculated efficiency, and many more. However, even though significant advances have been made in the field of anemometry the subjects of estimating a wind turbine's site energy potential and analyzing a turbine's efficiency has not been updated. In this work high frequency wind measurements that included wind speed using two different anemometers, wind direction and others were gathered and analyzed. The energy potential and efficiency of the turbine was calculated using this data and compared to the figures that would have been received by using the methods described in the IEC 61400-12-2 Standard. Results show that by using a higher frequency measuring system both a site's energy potential and turbine's efficiency can vary substantially in comparison with the methods described in the International Standard. This research can affect the way a future wind turbine's site energy potential is measured, it can cause existing wind turbine to reevaluate their productivity performance, and on top of all it can cause the examination of the validity of the International Standards regarding wind turbine performance: IEC 61400-12-1 and IEC 61400-12-2.