Study on power characteristics of wind turbine on the Loess Plateau terrain based on wind tunnel experiment

In order to investigate the impact of the flow field on wind turbine power in northwest China’s Loess Plateau, a wind tunnel experiment was conducted using a self-designed model that simulated the actual terrain. By comparing experiments utilizing an ideal mountain model under varying incoming wind speeds, it was revealed that the Loess Plateau terrain resulted in an increased inflow wind speed for the wind turbine. This higher inflow wind speed led to an approximate 5% increase in output power but also caused about a 6.1% rise in power fluctuations. Through analysis of the power spectrum of the output, it was discovered that turbulence below the decoupling frequency strongly modulates the output power of the wind turbine. This study also provided insights into spatial scale ranges where incoming flow turbulence structures can modulate output power, ranging from approximately 0.3 times to 5 times the diameter of rotor blades.