Turbine- and farm-scale power losses in wind farms: an alternative to wake and farm blockage losses

Kirby, Andrew; Nishino, Takafumi; Lanzilao, Luca; Dunstan, Thomas D.; Meyers, Johan

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-435-2025

Articles | Volume 10, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-435-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-435-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 10, issue 2

Research article

|

20 Feb 2025

Research article |

| 20 Feb 2025

Turbine- and farm-scale power losses in wind farms: an alternative to wake and farm blockage losses

Andrew Kirby, Takafumi Nishino, Luca Lanzilao, Thomas D. Dunstan, and Johan Meyers

Data sets

A reference database of wind-farm large-eddy simulations for parametrizing effects of blockage and gravity waves L. Lanzilao and J. Meyers https://doi.org/10.48804/L45LTT

Model code and software

LES_CNBL_analysis A. Kirby https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14865964

Short summary

Traditionally, the aerodynamic loss of wind farm efficiency is classified into wake loss and farm blockage loss. This study, using high-fidelity simulations, shows that neither of these two losses is well correlated with the overall farm efficiency. We propose new measures called turbine-scale efficiency and farm-scale efficiency to better describe turbine–wake effects and farm–atmosphere interactions. This study suggests the importance of better modelling farm-scale loss in future studies.