Wind energy software

Specialized wind energy software applications aid in the development and operation of wind farms.

Pre-Feasibility and Feasibility Analysis

The RETScreen Software Wind Power Model can be used worldwide to evaluate the energy production and savings, costs, emission reductions, financial viability and risk for central-grid, isolated-grid and off-grid wind energy projects, ranging in size from large scale multi-turbine wind farms to small scale single-turbine wind-diesel hybrid systems. Developed by the Government of Canada, the software is free, multilingual, and includes links to wind energy resource maps.^[1][2]

The Wind Data Generator (WDG) is a Wind Energy Software tool capable of running WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) model to create a wind atlas and to generate wind data at any location, any height of interest for any resolution from 3km to 10km.

Program management

Programs involve equipment vendors and service providers that collaborate throughout the project. Documentation, lease management, asset tracking and warranty management are some of the key elements of effectively executed and managed programs. Siterra provides an on-demand solution to help in these areas.

Offshore Windfarm Site Management Tools

The SeaPlanner^[3] suite of site management tools is a secure integrated web-based solution for the lifecycle of offshore wind farms. SeaPlanner modules include a spatial database for GIS data, document management, personnel management (including automated personnel tracking systems using swipe cards), real-time metocean data and vessel movements, Health and Safety (HSE) and scheduling and resource management. SeaPlanner is in use or has been used in eight offshore windfarm sites in the UK and Europe.

The Trident Offshore Wind Farm Manager^[4] is a secure web-based solution for work vessel and construction milestone coordination during the construction of offshore wind farms. Project managers and contractors all have access to the up-to-date status of all elements, live metocean data and real-time vessel movements (AIS).

Turbine design

Software helps design wind turbines. There are several aero-elastic packages that are used in this design process.

FOCUS aids in the design of wind turbines and turbine components such as rotor blades. FOCUS has been used for over a decade and is developed by Knowledge Centre Wind turbine Materials and Constructions (WMC)^[5] and Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN).^[6]

GH Bladed is a de facto industry standard, developed by independent consultant Garrad Hassan and validated by Germanischer Lloyd for calculating turbine loads for design and certification.

FLEX is mainly used in the Danish industry. Lloyd also validated FLEX for the calculation of wind turbine loads for design and certification.

ADCoS is an aeroelastic program based on finite elements. It is developed by ADC and was validated by Germanischer Lloyd. Load calculations for onshore and offshore wind turbines, turbine design and certification can be performed with ADCoS.^[7]

The MLS Control Design Toolbox is a Matlab post-processing tool to handle the results of FLEX and Bladed simulations that also contains controller design capabilities. It was developed by independent consultants MLS.

The National Wind Technology Center (NWTC), a division of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), has developed many packages which are used by turbine manufacturers and researchers. NWTC has developed a suite of turbine design and performance prediction codes which rely on Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory. WT_Perf uses steady BEM theory to model turbine performance. FAST is a comprehensive aero-elastic simulator which uses unsteady BEM theory to model a turbine as a collection of rigid and flexible bodies in a spatiotemporal field of turbulent flow. Germanischer Lloyd found FAST suitable for "the calculation of onshore wind turbine loads for design and certification."^[8][9]

The open source software QBlade developed by the wind energy research group of Hermann Föttinger Institute of TU Berlin (Chair of Fluid Dynamics) is a BEM code coupled with the airfoil simulation code XFOIL. It allows the user to develop/import airfoil shapes, simulate them and use them for the design and simulation of wind turbine blades/rotors with the use of steady state BEM theory. The software is built with the Qt framework thus it includes a very user friendly GUI.

Analysis

Wind data analysis software assists in removing measurement errors from wind data sets and performs specialized statistical analysis. Popular applications include WindFarmer,^[10] MINT, Windographer and WindRose.

Flow modeling

Wind flow modeling software predicts important wind characteristics at locations where measurements are not available. WAsP is the most popular and was created at Denmarks' Risø National Laboratory. WAsP uses a potential flow model to predict how wind flows over terrain at a site. Meteodyn WT,^[11] O.F.Wind, WindSim, Windie(TM)^[12][13] and ZephyTOOLS computational fluid dynamics instead, which are potentially more accurate. However, this comes at the price of being more computationally expensive.

Farm modeling

This software simulates wind farm behavior, most importantly to calculate its energy output. The user can usually input wind data, height and roughness contour lines (topography), turbine specifications, background maps, and define environmental restrictions. Processing this information produces the design of a wind farm that maximizes energy production while accounting for restrictions and construction issues. Packages include: ZephyTOOLS, Meteodyn WT, openWind, WindFarm, WindFarmer,^[10] O.F.Wind, WindPRO, and WindSim.

Farm visualization

Wind farm visualization software graphically presents a proposed wind farm, most importantly for the purpose of obtaining building permits. The primary techniques include photomontages, zone-of-visual-impact maps and three dimensional visualization (perspective views of the landscape often incorporating aerial photography and including turbines and other objects). Wind farm visualization software includes: openWind, O.F.Wind, WindPRO, WindFarmer^[10] and WindFarm.

Prediction software

For existing wind farms, several software systems exist which produce short and medium term forecasts for the generated power (single farms or complete forecast regions) using existing numerical weather prediction data (NWP) and live (SCADA) farm data as input. Examples are the ANEMOS wind power prediction system^[14] and ENFOR: Wind Power Prediction Tool (WPPT).^[15] Examples for numerical weather prediction models used for this purpose are the European HiRLAM (High Resolution Limited Area Model) and the GFS (Global Forecast System) from NOAA.

Noise Prediction

Wind turbines generate two types of noise: aerodynamic and mechanical. Noise prediction software is used in order to properly design wind farms which will not affect the surrounding environment in terms of noise. An example for noise prediction software used for wind farm design is Olive Tree Lab Terrain.^[16] There is also WindFarmer,^[10] WindFarm, openWind and WindPRO.

References

v t e Wind power Wind power Environmental impact High-altitude History Offshore Turbines on public display Vehicles Windmill Wind turbines Aerodynamics Airborne Crosswind kite Darrieus Design Floating Savonius Small Unconventional Vertical axis Wind power industry Consulting companies Farm management Manufacturers Software Windmade Wind farms Community-owned Farms by country Offshore farms by country Onshore farms Concepts Betz' law Capacity factor EROEI Forecasting Grid energy storage HVDC Intermittency Laddermill Net energy gain Resource assessment Storage Subsidies Wind profile power law