Assessing wake effects in the 21GW Roadmap

The Dutch roadmap for offshore wind energy aims for an installed capacity of 21 GW in 2032. Whiffle has been granted an extensive modeling study to the energy production and wake effects of the operational and planned wind farms of the 21 GW offshore energy roadmap.

The aim of the study is to reduce the uncertainty in the expected annual energy production and to offer insights in the potential impact of (cluster) wake effects (i.e. the wake effects from one or multiple wind farms to others).

This has been achieved by simulating a suite of scenarios with incremental built-out steps of the planned offshore wind farms. Also, sensitivity studies to (among others) the applied turbine type, wind farm layout and foreign wind farms have been performed.

The selected set of scenarios represents a wide range of wind farm configurations, which is relevant as the specifications of future wind farms are yet unknown.

Whiffle LES Simulation

All data presented in the Wake Viewer were generated using Whiffle’s LES model (Large Eddy Simulation). By numerically integrating the filtered conservation equations of mass, momentum, temperature, and moisture, LES is able to capture the essential aspects of wind farm flow dynamics in a physically sound way.

Whiffle’s LES is a fast and robust commercial high-resolution model that has been extensively validated and is used by many developers of offshore and onshore wind farms.