Wind turbine wakes may damage your revenue — and your turbines.

The Wake Effect

As wind turbines operate, energy is extracted from the inflow, creating a waked region downstream. As wakes propagate through the wind plant, they negatively impact downstream turbines from a power and loading perspective. Depending on site configuration and atmospheric conditions, the wake effect can result in anywhere between 5-20% energy production loss throughout the wind site.

Closed-Loop System

Typically, each individual turbine in a wind plant employs strategies to optimize its own power output — rather than maximizing the output of the plant as a whole. The result is counter productive. As each turbine strives to maximize its own output, wind plant wake effects are amplified and plant power output is reduced. This causes lower annual energy production and a shorter lifespan for wind assets. 

So, in a world that becomes increasingly interconnected each day, why are wind turbines continuing to be optimized on an individual basis? Would it make more sense to optimize the site as a whole, rather than single turbines at a time? This is the philosophy that helped us develop WindESCo Swarm^TM. Swarm is set to unlock millions in ROI for wind asset owners by enabling turbines to cooperatively adjust positioning for the entire farm, mitigating wake effects to improve AEP.

Guide to Mitigating Wake Effects

For a detailed explanation of the effects wakes have on your assets, we put together a downloadable guide to mitigating wake effects to improve AEP by using Swarm. When requested, the free guide will be sent to your email. Included in the guide, you will find the following:

• What causes wakes and how they impact energy production
• Why social turbines can produce more energy than individually optimized assets
• Strategies for mitigating wake effects
• How WindESCo Swarm^TM can help your turbines work together as a group, increasing AEP and revenue by 3–5%