Improving wind farm efficiency in offshore hybrid wind–solar farms with thermally induced secondary motions

Large-eddy simulations of atmospheric flow through hybrid wind-solar farms were performed, showing that the significant temperature difference between the sea surface and floating photovoltaic arrays can induce secondary flows in the plane perpendicular to the mean flow. These motions lead to larger wind speed in the area between the strips, from which wind turbines will benefit if they are placed in these locations. The simulations indicate that this results in a gain of up to 30% in wind power production in a hybrid wind-solar farm, as compared to an isolated wind farm.