Smart wind farm controller - concept and pilot test campaign

The Smart Wind Farm Controller (SWFC) is an active control system designed to optimise the wind farm (WF) efficiency by enabling communication between Wind Turbine Generators (WTs). Instead of each WT maximizing its own output independently, the SWFC uses data from sensors on all WTs to enhance the overall performance of the WF. Wake steering has been selected as the inaugural wind farm control concept for this project. It addresses the issues of wakes caused by upstream WTs, which reduce performance and increase maintenance needs in closely spaced WFs. Wake steering intentionally misaligns certain WTs to divert harmful wakes from downstream turbines, thereby improving their performance. Although the misaligned upstream WT loses some power, this trade-off benefits the downstream turbines, resulting in increased overall power generation. Pilot tests demonstrated the potential of wake steering, achieving a 0.7% increase in Annual Energy Production (AEP) for an entire wind farm (composed of 13 WTs) with just two turbines equipped with the SWFC. This method shows promise for improving energy efficiency and prolonging turbine lifetimes across the WF.