The curled wake model: A three-dimensional and extremely fast steady-state wake solver for wind plant flows

Abstract. This work focuses on minimizing the computational cost of steady-state wind power plant flow simulations that take into account wake steering physics. We present a simple wake solver with a computational cost on the order of seconds for large wind plants. The solver uses a simplified form of the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations to obtain a parabolic equation for the wake deficit of a wind plant. We compare results from the model to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) from the Lillgrund wind plant; good agreement is obtained. Results for the solver in complex terrain are also shown. Finally, the solver is demonstrated for a case with wake steering showing good agreement with power reported by large-eddy simulations. This new solver minimizes the time – and therefore the related cost – it takes to conduct a steady-state wind plant flow simulation to about a second on a personal laptop. This solver can be used for different applications including wake steering for wind power plants and layout optimization, and it will soon be available within the FLOw Redirection and Induction in Steady State (FLORIS) framework.