U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy NREL Leads Wind Farm Modeling Research September 27, 2012
Researchers study the atmosphere surrounding large turbines to
optimize performance This offshore wind farm, off the coast of
Denmark, features ten 2-MW Bonus wind turbines. Courtesy of HC
Sorensen, Middelgrunden Wind Turbine Cooperative Wind turbines
can be greedy because individual machines are designed to gobble
up as much wind energy as possible. Until recently, that was
considered normal. Now, however, most turbines are built to be
used in wind farms, and a single turbine's performance matters
far less than the farm's overall efficiency. To address this new
paradigm, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has
created complex computer modeling tools to improve wind turbine
design and overall wind farm performance, based on the best
possible research data. To that end, starting in 2011, NREL and
the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) partnered
with scientific