Simulating the interaction between wind turbines and the atmosphere using a blade element momentum model coupled to a full 3D atmospheric model
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- With the rapid growth of wind power as an alternative source of energy, it is important to determine how large wind farms will affect weather and climate. The interaction between turbines and the atmosphere plays a role in wind farm siting, as well as determining the best layout for optimum power production. To this end, a wind turbine parameterization based on the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) method is developed to be placed into a 3D atmospheric model. The BEM model is implemented and tested against three different turbines to verify that it is a good model to use for this purpose. Before integration into the atmospheric model, the basic theory behind the BEM is used to estimate the energy lost from the lowest 1 km of the atmosphere due to large deployments of wind energy. This energy loss is found to be quite small. Even with wind power assumed to replace all fossil fuel energy sources, the loss over the entire lowest 1 km of the atmosphere ranged from 0.006- 0.008%. It is expected, however, that the turbine-atmosphere interaction will be more pronounced in the local scale. To study these small-scale effects, the BEM parameterization is then integrated into GATOR-GCMOM, a global to urban scale atmospheric model. The parameterization calculates the forces applied by the turbine blades to the flow going through the rotor and this is added to GATOR-GCMOM as body forces in the momentum equations. The coupled model is used to simulate the feedback of turbines on different meteorological variables given realistic weather conditions provided by GATOR-GCMOM. The simulations have four nested grids, going from a global domain down to an urban scale domain, located over Oklahoma City. They are initialized with meteorological conditions from NCEP files. Results from two times of day are presented, 6 AM and 12 PM, to show the effect of atmospheric stability. Turbine effects are more defined in the early morning hours, when the atmosphere is stable. In general, wind speeds decrease at hub height and increase near the surface. Turbulent kinetic energy increases at hub height and decreases near the surface. Surface heat fluxes mostly increase in the wake. During the early morning hours, greater mixing in the wake brings warmer air aloft down to the ground and cooler air from the ground up to the hub region. The opposite happens during the day, when cooler air from above is mixed down to the ground and warm air from below is mixed upward. The incorporation of actively changing weather highlights the importance of atmospheric stability, as well as soil and surface properties, in the study of turbine-atmosphere interactions. It also yields unexpected power production patterns as the small scale circulations affect the winds upstream of each turbine.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2013 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Sta. Maria, Magdalena Rosario V |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. |
| Primary advisor | Jacobson, Mark Z. (Mark Zachary) |
| Thesis advisor | Jacobson, Mark Z. (Mark Zachary) |
| Thesis advisor | Fringer, Oliver B. (Oliver Bartlett) |
| Thesis advisor | Street, Robert |
| Advisor | Fringer, Oliver B. (Oliver Bartlett) |
| Advisor | Street, Robert |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Magdalena Rosario V. Sta. Maria. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. |
| Thesis | Ph.D. Stanford University 2013 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2013 by Magdalena Rosario Villarosa Sta. Maria
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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