Presentation Description: In October 2019, Ørsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, publicly announced a 2% downgrade of their fleet energy assessment, leading to an immediate stock drop and triggering a reevaluation of energy estimates across the industry. Stated reasons for the energy adjustments were underprediction of wind farm wakes and blockage, which Ørsted emphasized was an industry wide issue. Blockage and wakes have since galvanized the industry to develop improved methods for prediction and highlighted a lack of observational data that could provide more detailed understanding.
The American Wake Experiment (AWAKEN) led by US Department of Energy national laboratories is a multinational multi-institutional field campaign to observe the detailed phenomena that are leading to wind farm energy production overestimation. The field campaign, which the AWAKEN team began planning in 2018, will harness the expertise, instrumentation and simulation capability of the world’s top wind energy researchers to gather the most comprehensive and detailed observations of wind farm atmosphere interactions to date. This panel, involving a cross-section of participants in the AWAKEN experiment, will provide an overview of the field campaign, the science issues to be addressed and the benefits to industry. Panel members will engage with both the panel moderator and audience.
Learning Objectives:
Upon completion, participants will be able to visualize the benefits of the American Wake Experiment (AWAKEN) towards reducing uncertainties in the wind plant energy estimation process through coordinated simulations and observations.
Upon completion, participants will be able to connect the American Wake Experiment (AWAKEN) science goals to industry relevant challenges related to increasing wind farm performance.
Upon completion, participants will be able to discover the next generation of simulation capabilities and observational technologies being developed under the American Wake Experiment (AWAKEN) that will help advance the industry state-of-the-art.
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