Development and validation of a hybrid data-driven model-based wake steering controller and its application at a utility-scale wind plant

Abstract. Despite the promise of wind farm control through wake steering to reduce wake losses, the deployment of the technology to wind plants has historically been limited to small and simple demonstrations. In this study, we develop a wake steering control system and deploy it to 10 turbines within a complex 58-turbine wind plant. A multi-month data collection campaign was used to develop a closed-loop tuning and validation process for the eventual deployment of the system to 165 turbines on this and two neighboring wind plants. The system employs a novel actuation strategy, using absolute nacelle position control instead of yaw sensor offsets, along with a model in the loop performing real-time prediction and optimization. The novel model architecture, which employs data-driven input estimation and calibration of an engineering wake model along with a neural-network-based output correction, is examined in a validation framework that tests predictive capabilities in both a dynamic (i.e., time series) and an aggregate sense. It is demonstrated that model accuracy can be significantly increased through this architecture, which will facilitate effective wake steering control in plant layouts and atmospheric conditions whose complexities are difficult to resolve using an engineering wake model alone.