Large-eddy simulation of a utility-scale wind farm in complex terrain

Site-specific wind farm design must take into account the effects of site-specific terrain topography. Large-eddy simulation (LES) is a promising approach for simulating the site-specific characteristics of the wind fields and turbine wakes in complex terrain. In this work, we apply the state-of-art LES code Virtual Flow Simulator (VFS-Wind) to simulate the Invenergy Vantage wind farm in complex terrain. The computed power outputs are compared with field measurements and good agreement with the measured data is obtained. A simple analytical wind farm model without considering the complex terrain effects is also applied to predict the performance of the Vantage wind farm layout. The results show that such a model overestimates the performance of the actual Vantage wind farm and underscore the need for developing analytical models that account for terrain effects to enable wind farm design and optimization in complex terrain.