Effects of wake-turbine blade interactions on power production of wind turbines

In offshore wind farms, deterioration in power generation performance due to the mutual interference of flow around the wind turbines is a serious issue. To clarify the effects of wake-turbine blade interactions on the performance of wind farms, we conducted large-scale simulations of the flow around two full-scale wind turbines in a tandem-arrangement with two different spacings. The spacing between the two turbines was L/D = 1.0 and L/D = 2.0, with D being the rotor diameter. The predicted results show that vortices generated in the wake of the first turbine interfere with the blades of the second turbine and the interference becomes more intense for the case of L/D = 1.0. Thus, the power coefficient of the downstream turbine becomes lower by 80% for the case of L/D = 1.0 compared with the case of a single wind turbine.