Unravelling the multiscale nature of turbine wakes to design more efficient wind farms
Over the recent years, the world has seen a tremendous growth in the wind energy sector with the global wind energy production capacity in 2021 standing nearly 4.5 times the capacity in 2010. However, aligning with ambitious net-zero targets still requires a colossal effort to exploit the full potential of wind energy resources through improved design of wind farm layouts as well as individual turbines. Inside a grid of turbines, the turbines placed in the wake (the low momentum region) of an upstream turbine are inefficient and are at higher risk of fatigue damage due to the unsteady turbulent nature of the wake it is exposed to. As the turbines tend to get bigger and bigger with time, the spacing between two turbines in a wind turbine grid no longer remains a free parameter, rather land/area related constraints also become a key factor in designing wind farm layouts, often forcing the designers to place a turbine in the wake of another turbine. In that regard, it is important to ask how does the wake of a wind turbine evolve in the downstream direction? What are the length and time scales (frequencies) present in the wake that the downstream turbines could be exposed to? Can all these frequencies be related to the design or operational condition of the upstream turbine? If so, can we control/modify them to achieve an improved performance of the downstream turbines? We conduct a series of experiments on a model lab-scale wind turbine to answer some of these interesting questions.
Biography:
Neelakash Biswas is a president’s PhD scholar in the department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London working under Dr. Oliver Buxton. As a part of his PhD, he is working on multiscale interactions in a wind turbine wake to develop a better understanding on the spatio-temporal evolution of the wake. Prior to joining at Imperial in 2021, Neelakash completed integrated bachelor’s and master’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in Aerospace Engineering. Apart from wind turbines, Neelakash has interest in flow instabilities, transitional and turbulent jets and wakes.
About Energy Futures Lab
Energy Futures Lab is one of seven Global Institutes at Imperial College London. The institute was established to address global energy challenges by identifying and leading new opportunities to serve industry, government and society at large through high quality research, evidence and advocacy for positive change. The institute aims to promote energy innovation and advance systemic solutions for a sustainable energy future by bringing together the science, engineering and policy expertise at Imperial and fostering collaboration with a wide variety of external partners.