A novel wind farm concept, called a regenerative wind farm, is investigated numerically. This concept tackles the significant wake interaction losses among traditional wind farms. Our results show that regenerative wind farms can greatly reduce these losses, boosting power output per unit surface. Unlike traditional farms with three-bladed wind turbines, regenerative farms use multi-rotor systems with lifting devices (MRSLs). This unconventional design effectively reduces wake losses.

The use of flying wings in airborne wind energy systems (AWESs) is promising. This paper develops a guidance concept for launching and landing of such a flying wing AWES. The fundamental challenges are presented, and a suitable guidance concept is identified. It is analyzed in terms of controllability at different wind speeds and guidance parameters allowing the design of a controller. Simulation results show that the guidance concept presented here facilitates the desired launching and landing.

The amount of energy that can be extracted from wind depends primarily on the blade geometry, which can be affected by elastic deformations. This paper presents a first study analysing the influence of cross-sectional deformations of a 15 MW wind turbine blade on aero-elastic simulations. The results show that cross-sectional deformations have a minor influence on the internal loads of rotor blades in normal operation.

This paper presents a methodology for assessing the system design and scaling trends in airborne wind energy (AWE). A multi-disciplinary design, analysis, and optimisation (MDAO) framework was developed, integrating power, energy production, and cost models for the fixed-wing ground-generation (GG) AWE concept. Using the levelized cost of electricity (LCoE) as the design objective, we found that the optimal size of systems lies between the rated power of 100 and 1000 kW.

We present a wind tunnel study on the effect of an adverse pressure gradient on wakes from porous discs and cylinders. We quantified the spatial development of turbulent wakes for Reynolds numbers up to 3.9 × 10⁵ and at distances ranging from 1 to 12 diameters downstream, both with and without an adverse pressure gradient. Consistent with previous studies, we find that the pressure gradient has an effect in all cases, resulting in larger velocity deficits and wider wakes.

This study analyses wind speed data at heights up to 500 m to support the design of future large offshore wind turbines and airborne wind energy systems.  We compared three wind models (ERA5, NORA3, and NEWA) with lidar measurements at five sites using four performance metrics. ERA5 and NORA3 performed equally well offshore, with NORA3 typically outperforming the other two models onshore. More generally, the optimal choice of model depends on site, altitude, and evaluation criteria.

In this paper, we present results from advanced computer simulations to determine the effects of applying different control strategies to a small wind farm. We show that when there is variability in wind direction over height, steering the wake of a turbine away from other turbines is the most effective strategy. When this variability is not present, actively changing the pitch angle of the blades to increase turbulence in the wake could be more effective.

Wind farms are crucial for a sustainable energy future. However, their power can fluctuate significantly due to changing weather conditions, which complexly affect their power generation. This paper presents a novel machine-learning-based method to enhance wind farm power predictions, enabling improved power scheduling, trading and grid balancing. This makes wind power more valuable and easier to integrate into the energy system.