Coriolis force deflects wind plant wakes left in the Northern Hemisphere

TL;DR

This study experimentally investigates how the Coriolis force influences wind plant wake dynamics, revealing a global anti-clockwise deflection in the Northern Hemisphere, which enhances understanding of atmospheric effects on wind energy systems.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental evidence of Coriolis-induced wake deflection in scaled wind plants, advancing beyond previous numerical simulations.

Findings

Global plant wake deflects anti-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere

Single turbine wake deflection is insignificant

Introduces novel experimental methods for wind energy research

Abstract

The physical growth of wind energy over several decades, caused a re-investigation mesoscale effects on wind plant dynamics. At a large scale operation, understanding the interactions between atmospheric phenomena and wind plant wakes is crucial to improving models. Within a wind plant, wakes are generated by individual turbines and the summation of individual wakes is the global plant wake. In both cases, the dynamics are sensitive to atmospheric conditions; one of interest to wind and atmospheric scientists is the Coriolis force. Current research noted spatial and temporal influences on the global plant wakes caused by the Coriolis force. Due to the presence of wind veer in the atmospheric boundary layer, field research is notoriously difficult. As a result, investigations have been lead by numerical simulations. This proved helpful for initial queries, established the significance of the Coriolis force as a non trivial parameter of wind plant dynamics. This works presents a novel experimental study of the impact of the Coriolis force on the dynamics of a scaled wind plant. The experiments show that for a single turbine the wake deflection is insignificant. Additionally, the results show that the global plant wake deflects in the anti-clockwise direction in the Northern hemisphere. The outcomes of this work yield unique experimental methods for research in wind energy, and provide a new basis for the fundamental dynamics of a wind plant under influence of the Coriolis force for future wind plant models causing influence on the global expansion of wind energy.