AN ASSESSMENT of the DISCREPANCY BETWEEN OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENT and WIND RESOURCE ASSESSMENT for a WIND FARM in IRELAND Thesis I
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AN ASSESSMENT OF THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENT AND WIND RESOURCE ASSESSMENT FOR A WIND FARM IN IRELAND Thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE WITH A MAJOR IN ENERGY TECHNOLOGY WITH FOCUS ON WIND POWER Uppsala University Department of Earth Sciences, Campus Gotland Johnny Gallagher 30/09/2014 AN ASSESSMENT OF THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENT AND WIND RESOURCE ASSESSMENT FOR A WIND FARM IN IRELAND Thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE WITH A MAJOR IN ENERGY TECHNOLOGY WITH FOCUS ON WIND POWER Uppsala University Department of Earth Sciences, Campus Gotland Approved by: Supervisor, Simon-Philippe Breton Examiner, Stefan Ivanell Date 30th September 2014 iii Abstract An accurate wind resource assessment (WRA) is crucial in energy prediction as the power is directly proportional to the wind speed cubed. This thesis analyses the discrepancy between operational assessment and WRA for a wind farm located on a moderately complex terrain in Ireland. As part of this research, a WRA was undertaken and the results were input to two wind farm design tools, WindPro and WindSim, to estimate the annual energy production. Two and a half years of data was available from a 50m met mast. The data was analysed and filtered to ascertain and limit the usage of erroneous data. The dataset was then correlated with an available online dataset utilising the Measure Correlate Predict (MCP) module in WindPro in order to estimate the long term wind resource at the site. The wind resource was then used to determine the annual energy produced at the site using both WindPro and WindSim. A loss of 8% was applied to the energy calculations for comparison with the original WRA. The results demonstrate the energy production from the original energy prediction, undertaken by a leading wind consultancy prior to construction, was overestimated by an average 10.19% over the three years of operation. The averaged wind speed at hub height in the original WRA was 8.2m/s. However, the prediction undertaken using WindPro in this study estimated an average hub height wind speed of 8.0m/s while WindSim estimated an average of 7.36m/s. These differing results had a significant contribution to the difference in Annual Energy Production (AEP). The calculated annual energy results were an overestimation of energy production by an average of 8.10% utilising WindPro, while WindSim underestimated the energy output by just 0.11%. iv Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to thank a few people who have contributed to this thesis. First of all I would like to thank my project supervisor Simon-Philippe Breton for his continued guidance and advice, as well as the knowledge he shared which helped shape my thesis. I would like to thank the entire Wind Power Project Management (WPPM) faculty at Uppsala University Campus Gotland for their support throughout the course of the year and for making it a great experience, with special mention to Nikolaos Simisiroglou for his direction and assistance using WindSim. Finally, thanks to my family and friends for their support, patience and understanding throughout my college tenure. v Nomenclature AEP Annual Energy Production CFD Computational Fluid Dynamics DNS Direct Numerical Simulation LES Large Eddy Simulation LIDAR Light Detection and Ranging MCP Measure Correlate Predict MW Megawatt RANS Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes SRTM Shuttle Radar Topography Mission WRA Wind Resource Assessment vi Table of Contents Page Abstract ..................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... iv Nomenclature ....................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures ................................................................................................................... viii List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Background and Justification of the research ................................................................. 1 1.2 Research problem and hypotheses .................................................................................. 2 1.3 Methodology ................................................................................................................... 2 1.4 Outline of the thesis ........................................................................................................ 3 1.5 Delimitations of scope and key assumptions .................................................................. 3 1.6 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 3 Chapter 2. Literature review ...................................................................................................... 4 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 4 2.2 Uncertainty analysis in WRA ......................................................................................... 5 2.3 Methods .......................................................................................................................... 7 2.4 Software .......................................................................................................................... 8 2.4.1 Comparing software .......................................................................................... 11 2.5 Wake effects ................................................................................................................. 13 2.6 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 15 Chapter 3. Methodology .......................................................................................................... 16 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 16 3.2 Justification for the paradigm and methodology .......................................................... 16 3.3 Research procedures ..................................................................................................... 16 3.4 Wind data approach and validation .............................................................................. 17 3.4.1 MCP Procedure ................................................................................................. 18 3.5 Simulations ................................................................................................................... 19 vii 3.5.1 Simulations using WindPro ............................................................................... 19 3.5.2 Simulations using WindSim .............................................................................. 20 3.6 Loss factors applied in energy prediction ..................................................................... 23 3.7 Ethical considerations ................................................................................................... 25 3.8 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 26 Chapter 4. Application of the methodology and results .......................................................... 27 4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 27 4.2 Site Description ............................................................................................................ 27 4.3 Wind speed data ............................................................................................................ 27 4.3.1 Analysis of wind speed data in WindPro .......................................................... 27 4.3.1 MCP analysis ..................................................................................................... 31 4.4 Energy calculation using WindPro ............................................................................... 33 4.5 WindPro results ............................................................................................................ 33 4.6 Energy calculation using WindSim .............................................................................. 35 4.6.1 Uniform results .................................................................................................. 36 4.6.2 Refinement results ............................................................................................. 39 4.7 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 42 Chapter 5. Discussion and analysis ......................................................................................... 43 5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................