Wind farm layout optimisation including meandering correction and momentum conserving superposition

Abstract. This study introduces a combined analytical approach, to simulate the wake flow in large-scale offshore wind farms and forecast their power output. The developed tool, Qwyn, integrates the Ishihara-Qian single-wake model, a momentum-conserving superposition method by Zong & Porté-Agel, and a wake meandering correction by Braunbehrens & Segalini. A validation against both measurement data and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) results at the Horns Rev 1 (HR1) wind farm is performed. This demonstrates the tool’s capability in capturing the wind farm flow and power output for different wind directions. Notably, the momentum-conserving superposition method significantly enhances the accuracy of power prediction for narrow directional wind bins, while the wake meandering correction improves precision for wider bins. Subsequently, the validated computational tool is used to optimise the layout of HR1 to enhance its annual power production (AEP). By introducing a convexly shaped layout a projected 0.12 % increase in AEP when optimising for a wind rose with 72 wind bins is found. Furthermore, this study shows, that omitting the meandering correction leads to an even more convexly shaped layout without substantial change in AEP improvement.