CFD Modelling of the wake interactions of two wind turbines on a Gaussian hill

One part of the solution to the problem of climate change is the use of wind energy for electricity generation. Onshore wind farms usually consist of a number of horizontal axis wind turbines closely spaced in clusters and they are often sited on complex terrain. Various models have been developed in the past to estimate the wake effects and optimize the siting of a wind farm, but they were mainly developed and validated for flat terrain and not for complex terrain sites. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can be a useful tool towards the understanding of wake behavior on complex terrain. The present work involves the use of FLUENT 6.3 commercial CFD code to study the wake interaction of two wind turbines closely spaced next to each other at the top of an ideal Gaussian hill. Contact person: Alexandros Makridis, Institute for Energy Systems – University of Edinburgh, Mayfield road, Kings Buildings, EH9 3JL, Edinburgh, telephone: +447833521488, FAX: +44 (0)131 6506554. E-mail: a.makridis@ed.ac.uk CFD Modeling of the wake interactions of two wind turbines on a Gaussian hill Alexandros Makridis, John Chick Institute for Energy Systems, University of Edinburgh – a.makridis@ed.ac.uk – Kings Buildings, Edinburgh – Institute for Energy Systems, University of Edinburgh – john.chick@ed.ac.uk – Kings Buildings, Edinburgh