Siemens Gamesa has unveiled new technology that adjusts the heading of individual offshore wind turbines to reduce production losses from wake effects.
The ‘wake adapt’ feature shifts the direction of the turbine wake away from downstream machines allowing an increase in overall wind farm performance of up to 1% in annual energy production, the company said.
Wake adapt applies wake steering techniques to reduce wake-induced production losses at offshore projects by up to 10%, it added.
The feature is remotely activated to strategically adjust the yaw angle of each individual turbine when the wake of upstream units negatively affects downstream machines.
“These offset angles deflect the wake away from downstream turbines, controlling the wind to ensure that downstream turbines receive a more powerful and undisrupted wind flow,” Siemens Gamesa said.
“This redistributes production across the row of turbines, increasing the performance of the entire wind power plant,” it added.
The adaptations are made depending on site-specific conditions and comply with the load design envelope for the turbines and support structures, the company said.
Siemens Gamesa head of offshore technology Morten Pilgaard Rasmussen said: “The wake adapt feature is about proactive problem-solving.
“Instead of letting the wind and wake fully dictate how much energy we can capture, we safely direct the wake – and its unfavourable effects – away from our machines across the entire power plant.
“Through digitalisation, we can produce more energy from the same turbines, benefitting our customers, ratepayers, and society overall.”
He added that, depending on project specific factors, wake adapt can be retrofitted at existing wind farms.
Siemens Gamesa is collaborating with an independent research organisation The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) to offer an alternative partner to its customers for gain verification purposes.
TNO also holds a patent related to wake steering, it added.
Siemens Gamesa has produced a video explaining the wake adapt feature.