Optimising the design and operation of Wind Power Plants

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CONTEXT

The wind industry is developing modern wind turbines and innovative airborne wind energy plants that are set to play a more and more significant role in the energy transition to a climate-neutral society.

Today, wind energy is one of the fastest-growing energy sources in the world. The wind industry is developing ever-larger wind turbines and airborne wind energy devices to harvest the wind at higher altitudes. This leads to a further expansion of wind energy’s capabilities and community benefits.

According to Eurostat, wind accounted for over one-third (36%) of the total electricity generated from renewable sources in the EU in 2020. The wind sector is also a significant contributor to the EU economy, boosting growth and creating long-term sustainable jobs. According to WindEurope, it provided between 240,000 and 300,000 jobs in the EU in 2020, of which about 62,000 were in the offshore wind industry.

CHALLENGES

Society needs clean energy, produced efficiently, without burning any fuel or polluting the air.

Wind power is a clean and renewable energy source. Wind generation devices aerodynamically extract power from the wind and use the resulting mechanical power to spin a generator and create electricity. Not only is wind an abundant and inexhaustible resource, but it also provides electricity without burning any fuel or polluting the air.

Here are just some of the challenges that wind plants and industry face today:

• How to fully understand the inflow conditions, as well as the loads on wind farms and airborne wind energy devices;
• How to increase the accuracy and reduce the uncertainty on performance;
• What is the best way to combine measurements, and models of different fidelities to accurately and efficiently predict loads and performance.

SOLUTIONS

MERIDIONAL provides a comprehensively validated toolchain based on an open source Platform, which draws on an integrated knowledge and data hub to allow the efficient and accurate assessment of the performance and loads experienced by onshore, offshore, and airborne wind energy systems.

MERIDIONAL will simulate the unsteady inflow conditions, the performance, and loads experienced by onshore, offshore, and airborne wind energy systems to achieve this.

MERIDIONAL will draw on the latest software and hardware solutions, including an open-source management platform, to predict wind plant performance.

Once refined, the MERIDIONAL solution framework will be put to the test through use cases. These use cases will consist of onshore, offshore, and airborne sites focusing on wind performance, design practice, and operation. This important step will demonstrate the MERIDIONAL tool chain’s capabilities to support better design and operation of wind plant for all situations

OBJECTIVES

Optimized wind power plants

Leaner design

Contribution to decarbonization and CO₂-free global economy

Creation of long-term sustainable jobs in the wind sector

BENEFITS

  • Optimised Availability of clean and affordable energy from renewable sources.
  • Optimised Lower costs and better efficiency in the production of energy.
  • Optimised Society can benefit from sustainable and secure energy systems.
  • Optimised Boosting growth and creating long-term sustainable jobs in the wind sector.

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