The fluid dynamics of offshore wind farms: modelling, design and optimal control

As part of Energy Futures Lab‘s daytime seminar series Georgios Deskos of the Department of Aeronautics talks about his work on wind farms.

Abstract

In this talk, Georgios will discuss the fluid dynamics of offshore wind farms. Offshore wind turbines operate within complex flow environments in which they are subject to (1) ambient atmospheric turbulence and (2) wake effects of upstream nearby turbines. Both effects are known to have an adverse impact on the power output and structural survivability of the individual turbines.

As the offshore wind industry moves towards the deployment of larger-sized turbines, conducting farm layout optimisation as well as optimal farm-level control are both two key components in achieving higher power outputs and increasing the lifespan of offshore turbines.

High-fidelity numerical simulations of wind farm wakes, powered by high-performance computing (HPC) platforms can potentially provide answers and drive optimal designs. All these will be discussed from a fundamental fluid mechanics point of view while examples from existing utility-scale offshore wind farms will also be presented.

Biography

Georgios (Yorgos) Deskos is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London where he works on the modelling, design and optimisation of offshore wind farms as part of the EPSRC funded project: FENGBO-WIND (Farming the ENvironment into the Grid: Big data in Offshore Wind). He recently completed his PhD work on “Numerical simulations of wind turbine wakes” for which he was awarded the third prize in the prestigious Reynolds Osborne Day 2018 competition.

Venue

The talk will be held in Room 611 of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (building 16 On the campus map). The room is known as the Gabor Suite.

If you are entering the building from Dalby Court/through the building’s main entrance take the lift to the sixth floor, turn right through the double doors and it is near the end on your left hand side.