Vertical wake deflection for offshore floating wind turbines by differential ballast control

Abstract

This paper discusses the idea of vertical wake deflection for offshore wind turbines using active ballast control. First, the concept of active ballast control for changing the attitude of an offshore wind energy semi-submersible platform is presented and briefly explored. Next, the influence of vertical wake deflection on the wake behavior and power production of a cluster of two wind turbines is studied through wind tunnel experiments and LES simulations. Results show that vertical deflection changes substantially the wake characteristics and affects the inflow at a downstream wind turbine in terms of available kinetic energy and turbulence intensity. For the most favorable case considered here, the cluster power was increased by approximately 8%.