The Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems IWES, in collaboration with project partners RWE, ForWind (University of Oldenburg – Institute of Physics), and Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, is investigating how to optimise the total energy yield of offshore wind farms in the “C²-Wakes – Controlled Cluster Wakes” research project.
The study aims to understand how wakes from different wind farms overlap and how wake-optimised operational management can impact these effects in large offshore wind farms.
The project team is collecting data via a scanning lidar measurement campaign at RWE’s Amrumbank West offshore wind farm near the German island of Helgoland. Devices installed on the wind turbine nacelles measure the flow fields downstream of the turbines. This data will help analyse how wind speeds evolve within the wind farm and how internal and large-scale wake effects change with adapted control strategies, such as wake steering. The campaign began in early April with the installation of three devices and will run for at least six months.
At the University of Oldenburg, ForWind scientists are developing and evaluating high-resolution simulation methods and lidar measurement scenarios. Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon is analysing satellite data and developing methods for wind field reconstruction to understand the impact of different turbine technologies, wind farm structures, and layouts on wake effects.
The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) with a total of approximately €2.86 million.
