Real time prediction of a wind farm power output

Presently, wind farms in Canada have a capacity of 4,588MW while Newfoundland and Labrador have a capacity of 54MW. Canada’s wind resource is immense and well distributed in rural areas throughout the country and more wind farms are under construction. Utilities need information about wind farm output power few hours in advance so that they can plan operation of their thermal units. Therefore, prediction of wind farm output power production is essential for system operation. In this research project a simple model of a wind farm will be developed that will include models of wind turbines, variation in wind speed with height, variation in wind speed over the site area and the wake interaction between wind turbines. Using the simple model output power of a wind farm will be predicted. A computer code will be developed to do real-time calculations of wind power output using a High Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC). Such model and computer code will be very useful for wind power producers and utilities.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Tariq Iqbal

Student:

Deepa Paga

Partner:

AMEC Earth and Environmental

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Environmental industry

University:

Memorial University of Newfoundland