Articles | Volume 10, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-613-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-613-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
25 Mar 2025
Research article |
| 25 Mar 2025
| 25 Mar 2025
A large-eddy simulation analysis of collective wind farm axial-induction set points in the presence of blockage
Théo Delvaux
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Department of Mechanical Engineering, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 300 – box 2421, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
Johan Meyers
Department of Mechanical Engineering, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 300 – box 2421, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
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Jens Peter Karolus Wenceslaus Frankemölle, Johan Camps, Pieter De Meutter, and Johan Meyers
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 1989–2003, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1989-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1989-2025, 2025
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To detect anomalous radioactivity in the environment, it is paramount that we understand the natural background level. In this work, we propose a statistical model to describe the most likely background level and the associated uncertainty in a network of dose rate detectors. We train, verify, and validate the model using real environmental data. Using the model, we show that we can correctly predict the background level in a subset of the detector network during a known
anomalous event.
Andrew Kirby, Takafumi Nishino, Luca Lanzilao, Thomas D. Dunstan, and Johan Meyers
Wind Energ. Sci., 10, 435–450, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-435-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-435-2025, 2025
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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.
Olivier Ndindayino, Augustin Puel, and Johan Meyers
Wind Energ. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-2025-6, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-2025-6, 2025
Preprint under review for WES
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Our aim is to understand the relationship between flow blockage and improved wind farm efficiency using large-eddy simulations, as well as developing an analytical model that shows promise for improving turbine power predictions under blockage. We found that blockage enhances turbine power and thrust by inducing a favourable pressure drop across the turbine row, while simultaneously inducing an unfavourable pressure increase downstream which has minimal direct impact on far wake development.
Majid Bastankhah, Marcus Becker, Matthew Churchfield, Caroline Draxl, Jay Prakash Goit, Mehtab Khan, Luis A. Martinez Tossas, Johan Meyers, Patrick Moriarty, Wim Munters, Asim Önder, Sara Porchetta, Eliot Quon, Ishaan Sood, Nicole van Lipzig, Jan-Willem van Wingerden, Paul Veers, and Simon Watson
Wind Energ. Sci., 9, 2171–2174, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-9-2171-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-9-2171-2024, 2024
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Dries Allaerts was born on 19 May 1989 and passed away at his home in Wezemaal, Belgium, on 10 October 2024 after battling cancer. Dries started his wind energy career in 2012 and had a profound impact afterward on the community, in terms of both his scientific realizations and his many friendships and collaborations in the field. His scientific acumen, open spirit of collaboration, positive attitude towards life, and playful and often cheeky sense of humor will be deeply missed by many.
Jérôme Neirynck, Jonas Van de Walle, Ruben Borgers, Sebastiaan Jamaer, Johan Meyers, Ad Stoffelen, and Nicole P. M. van Lipzig
Wind Energ. Sci., 9, 1695–1711, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-9-1695-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-9-1695-2024, 2024
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In our study, we assess how mesoscale weather systems influence wind speed variations and their impact on offshore wind energy production fluctuations. We have observed, for instance, that weather systems originating over land lead to sea wind speed variations. Additionally, we noted that power fluctuations are typically more significant in summer, despite potentially larger winter wind speed variations. These findings are valuable for grid management and optimizing renewable energy deployment.
Ruben Borgers, Marieke Dirksen, Ine L. Wijnant, Andrew Stepek, Ad Stoffelen, Naveed Akhtar, Jérôme Neirynck, Jonas Van de Walle, Johan Meyers, and Nicole P. M. van Lipzig
Wind Energ. Sci., 9, 697–719, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-9-697-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-9-697-2024, 2024
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Wind farms at sea are becoming more densely clustered, which means that next to individual wind turbines interfering with each other in a single wind farm also interference between wind farms becomes important. Using a climate model, this study shows that the efficiency of wind farm clusters and the interference between the wind farms in the cluster depend strongly on the properties of the individual wind farms and are also highly sensitive to the spacing between the wind farms.
Nick Janssens and Johan Meyers
Wind Energ. Sci., 9, 65–95, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-9-65-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-9-65-2024, 2024
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Proper wind farm control may vastly contribute to Europe's plan to go carbon neutral. However, current strategies don't account for turbine–wake interactions affecting power extraction. High-fidelity models (e.g., LES) are needed to accurately model this but are considered too slow in practice. By coarsening the resolution, we were able to design an efficient LES-based controller with real-time potential. This may allow us to bridge the gap towards practical wind farm control in the near future.
Ishaan Sood, Elliot Simon, Athanasios Vitsas, Bart Blockmans, Gunner C. Larsen, and Johan Meyers
Wind Energ. Sci., 7, 2469–2489, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-2469-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-2469-2022, 2022
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In this work, we conduct a validation study to compare a numerical solver against measurements obtained from the offshore Lillgrund wind farm. By reusing a previously developed inflow turbulent dataset, the atmospheric conditions at the wind farm were recreated, and the general performance trends of the turbines were captured well. The work increases the reliability of numerical wind farm solvers while highlighting the challenges of accurately representing large wind farms using such solvers.
Paul Veers, Katherine Dykes, Sukanta Basu, Alessandro Bianchini, Andrew Clifton, Peter Green, Hannele Holttinen, Lena Kitzing, Branko Kosovic, Julie K. Lundquist, Johan Meyers, Mark O'Malley, William J. Shaw, and Bethany Straw
Wind Energ. Sci., 7, 2491–2496, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-2491-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-2491-2022, 2022
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Wind energy will play a central role in the transition of our energy system to a carbon-free future. However, many underlying scientific issues remain to be resolved before wind can be deployed in the locations and applications needed for such large-scale ambitions. The Grand Challenges are the gaps in the science left behind during the rapid growth of wind energy. This article explains the breadth of the unfinished business and introduces 10 articles that detail the research needs.
Johan Meyers, Carlo Bottasso, Katherine Dykes, Paul Fleming, Pieter Gebraad, Gregor Giebel, Tuhfe Göçmen, and Jan-Willem van Wingerden
Wind Energ. Sci., 7, 2271–2306, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-2271-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-2271-2022, 2022
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We provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art and the outstanding challenges in wind farm flow control, thus identifying the key research areas that could further enable commercial uptake and success. To this end, we have structured the discussion on challenges and opportunities into four main areas: (1) insight into control flow physics, (2) algorithms and AI, (3) validation and industry implementation, and (4) integrating control with system design
(co-design).
Konstanze Kölle, Tuhfe Göçmen, Irene Eguinoa, Leonardo Andrés Alcayaga Román, Maria Aparicio-Sanchez, Ju Feng, Johan Meyers, Vasilis Pettas, and Ishaan Sood
Wind Energ. Sci., 7, 2181–2200, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-2181-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-2181-2022, 2022
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The paper studies wind farm flow control (WFFC) in simulations with variable electricity prices. The results indicate that considering the electricity price in the operational strategy can be beneficial with respect to the gained income compared to focusing on the power gain only. Moreover, revenue maximization by balancing power production and structural load reduction is demonstrated at the example of a single wind turbine.
Tuhfe Göçmen, Filippo Campagnolo, Thomas Duc, Irene Eguinoa, Søren Juhl Andersen, Vlaho Petrović, Lejla Imširović, Robert Braunbehrens, Jaime Liew, Mads Baungaard, Maarten Paul van der Laan, Guowei Qian, Maria Aparicio-Sanchez, Rubén González-Lope, Vinit V. Dighe, Marcus Becker, Maarten J. van den Broek, Jan-Willem van Wingerden, Adam Stock, Matthew Cole, Renzo Ruisi, Ervin Bossanyi, Niklas Requate, Simon Strnad, Jonas Schmidt, Lukas Vollmer, Ishaan Sood, and Johan Meyers
Wind Energ. Sci., 7, 1791–1825, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1791-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1791-2022, 2022
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The FarmConners benchmark is the first of its kind to bring a wide variety of data sets, control settings, and model complexities for the (initial) assessment of wind farm flow control benefits. Here we present the first part of the benchmark results for three blind tests with large-scale rotors and 11 participating models in total, via direct power comparisons at the turbines as well as the observed or estimated power gain at the wind farm level under wake steering control strategy.
Koen Devesse, Luca Lanzilao, Sebastiaan Jamaer, Nicole van Lipzig, and Johan Meyers
Wind Energ. Sci., 7, 1367–1382, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1367-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1367-2022, 2022
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Recent research suggests that offshore wind farms might form such a large obstacle to the wind that it already decelerates before reaching the first turbines. Part of this phenomenon could be explained by gravity waves. Research on these gravity waves triggered by mountains and hills has found that variations in the atmospheric state with altitude can have a large effect on how they behave. This paper is the first to take the impact of those vertical variations into account for wind farms.
Thomas Haas, Jochem De Schutter, Moritz Diehl, and Johan Meyers
Wind Energ. Sci., 7, 1093–1135, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1093-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1093-2022, 2022
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In this work, we study parks of large-scale airborne wind energy systems using a virtual flight simulator. The virtual flight simulator combines numerical techniques from flow simulation and kite control. Using advanced control algorithms, the systems can operate efficiently in the park despite turbulent flow conditions. For the three configurations considered in the study, we observe significant wake effects, reducing the power yield of the parks.
Luca Lanzilao and Johan Meyers
Wind Energ. Sci., 6, 247–271, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-6-247-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-6-247-2021, 2021
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This research paper investigates the potential of thrust set-point optimization in large wind farms for mitigating gravity-wave-induced blockage effects for the first time, with the aim of increasing the wind-farm energy extraction. The optimization tool is applied to almost 2000 different atmospheric states. Overall, power gains above 4 % are observed for 77 % of the cases.
Wim Munters and Johan Meyers
Wind Energ. Sci., 3, 409–425, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-3-409-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-3-409-2018, 2018
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Wake interactions in wind farms result in power losses for downstream turbines. We aim to mitigate these losses through coordinated control of the induced slowdown of the wind by each turbine. We further analyze results from earlier work towards the utilization of such control strategies in practice. Coherent vortex shedding is identified and mimicked by a sinusoidal control. The latter is shown to increase power in downstream turbines and is robust to turbine spacing and turbulence intensity.
Sjoerd Boersma, Bart Doekemeijer, Mehdi Vali, Johan Meyers, and Jan-Willem van Wingerden
Wind Energ. Sci., 3, 75–95, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-3-75-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-3-75-2018, 2018
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Controlling the flow within wind farms to reduce the fatigue loads and provide grid facilities such as the delivery of a demanded power is a challenging control problem due to the underlying time-varying non-linear wake dynamics. In this paper, a control-oriented dynamical wind farm model is presented and validated with high-fidelity wind farm models. In contrast to the latter models, the model presented in this work is computationally efficient and hence suitable for online wind farm control.
Carl R. Shapiro, Johan Meyers, Charles Meneveau, and Dennice F. Gayme
Wind Energ. Sci., 3, 11–24, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-3-11-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-3-11-2018, 2018
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We investigate the capability of wind farms to track a power reference signal to help ensure reliable power grid operations. The wind farm controller is based on a simple dynamic wind farm model and tested using high-fidelity simulations. We find that the dynamic nature of the wind farm model is vital for tracking the power signal, and the controlled wind farm would pass industry performance tests in most cases.
Vahid S. Bokharaie, Pieter Bauweraerts, and Johan Meyers
Wind Energ. Sci., 1, 311–325, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-1-311-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-1-311-2016, 2016
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Given a wind farm with known dimensions and number of wind turbines, we try to find the optimum positioning of wind turbines that maximises wind-farm energy production. We propose an optimisation approach that is based on a hybrid combination of large-eddy simulation (LES) and the Jensen model; in this approach optimisation is mainly performed using the Jensen model, and LES is used at a few points only during optimisation for online tuning of the Jensen model.
Related subject area
Thematic area: Wind and the atmosphere | Topic: Wakes and wind farm aerodynamics
The effects of wind farm wakes on freezing sea spray in the mid-Atlantic offshore wind energy areas
David Rosencrans, Julie K. Lundquist, Mike Optis, and Nicola Bodini
Wind Energ. Sci., 10, 59–81, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-59-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-59-2025, 2025
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The US offshore wind industry is growing rapidly. Expansion into cold climates will subject turbines and personnel to hazardous icing. We analyze the 21-year icing risk for US east coast wind areas based on numerical weather prediction simulations and further assess impacts from wind farm wakes over one winter season. Sea spray icing at 10 m can occur up to 67 h per month. However, turbine–atmosphere interactions reduce icing hours within wind plant areas.
Cited articles
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Short summary
The work explores the potential for wind farm load reduction and power maximization. We carried out a series of high-fidelity large-eddy simulations for a wide range of atmospheric conditions and operating regimes. Because of turbine-scale interactions and large-scale effects, we observed that maximum power extraction is achieved at regimes lower than the Betz operating point. Thus, we proposed three simple approaches with which thrust significantly decreases with only a limited impact on power.
The work explores the potential for wind farm load reduction and power maximization. We carried...
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