Applications of Systems Engineering to the Research, Design, and Development of Wind Energy Systems K. Dykes and R. Meadows With contributions from: F. Felker, P. Graf, M. Hand, M. Lunacek, J. Michalakes, P. Moriarty, W. Musial, and P. Veers NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC. Technical Report NREL/TP-5000-52616 December 2011 Contract No. DE -AC36-08GO28308 Applications of Systems Engineering to the Research, Design, and Development of Wind Energy Systems Authors: K. Dykes and R. Meadows With contributions from: F. Felker, P. Graf, M. Hand, M. Lunacek, J. Michalakes, P. Moriarty, W. Musial, and P. Veers Prepared under Task No. WE11.0341 NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC. National Renewable Energy Laboratory Technical Report NREL/TP-5000-52616 1617 Cole Boulevard Golden, Colorado 80401 December 2011 303-275-3000 • www.nrel.gov Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308 NOTICE This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States government. Neither the United States government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States government or any agency thereof. 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Acknowledgments In addition to those individuals explicitly listed as contributors above, there were many individuals that provided important suggestions and insights related to the paper. In particular, we would like to thank the external reviewers of the work who provided valuable feedback that helped improve the overall report. In addition, many of these reviewers also provided sources of information and guidance throughout the development of the report. We would first like to acknowledge our academic reviewers, including Associate Professor Juan Alonso, Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Stanford University, as well as Professor Nickolas Vlahopoulos, Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering, University of Michigan. Second, we would like to thank reviewers from our fellow laboratories and the DOE headquarters: Dr. Chris Hart, Offshore Wind Team Lead of the Wind and Water Program at the DOE, and Dr. Matt Barone, Aerodynamics and Acoustics Lead in the Wind Energy Technologies and Water Power Technologies Departments at Sandia National Laboratories. Finally, we appreciate industry feedback from Dr. Patrick Riley, Energy Systems Engineer, GE Global Research. In addition to the review team, communication from a few other individuals helped inform the overall report development. We would like to thank Dr. Jarrod Goentzel, Executive Director of the MIT Supply Chain Management Program, for his guidance in understanding important aspects of supply chain management as they related to wind energy systems. We would also like to acknowledge Dr. Curran Crawford, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Victoria; Dr. Deniz Ozkan, Project Coordinator at the Atlantic Wind Connection; and Ms. Bryony Du Pont, PhD Candidate in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, each for their communication regarding their respective thesis works. Finally, there are several people internal to the National Renewable Energy Lab who provided input and support for the report. They include: Dr. Jason Jonkman; Dr. Amy Robertson; Mr. Marshall Buhl; Mr. Jason Fields; Dr. Andy Clifton; Dr. Alan Wright; Dr. Paul Fleming; Mr. Erik Ela; Dr. Eduard Muljadi; Dr. Vahan Gevorgian; Dr. Scott Schreck; Dr. Matthew Churchfield; Dr. Shawn Sheng; Dr. Heidi Souder; and Dr. Eric Lantz. iii List of Acronyms AAO All-At-Once AEP annual energy production BOS balance of station CAD computer-aided design CFD computational fluid dynamics CPS2 Control Performance Standard 2 CSCD computer supported collaborative design DAKOTA Design Analysis Kit for Optimization and Terascale Applications DOE U.S. Department of Energy DFMA Design for Manufacturing and Assembly DSM design structure matrices FAST Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, and Turbulence FERC Federal Energy Regulatory Commission FESTIV Flexible Energy Scheduling Tool for Integration of Variable Generation FMEA Failure Mode Effects Analysis GIS Geographic Information System HPC high performance computing IDF Individual Discipline Feasible INCOSE International Council on Systems Engineering JEDI Jobs and Economic Development Impact Model LCOE Levelized Cost of Energy LIDAR Light Detection and Ranging MDO multidisciplinary design optimization MINLP mixed integer nonlinear programming MOO multi-objective optimization NAFnoise Airfoil Noise NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NREL National Renewable Energy Laboratory NSF National Science Foundation OEM original equipment manufacturers OFWIC Offshore Wind Integrated Cost O&M operations and maintenance QFD Quality Functional Deployment ReEDS Regional Energy Deployment System SAGE Semi-Automatic Ground Environment TSP traveling salesman problem TTS time-to-solution WAsP Wind Atlas Analysis and Application Program WESE Wind Energy Systems Engineering WindPACT Wind Partnerships for Advanced Component Technologies WinDS Wind Deployment System WILMAR Wind Power Integration in Liberalized Electricity Markets WRF Weather Research and Forecasting Model iv Executive Summary Over the past 30 years, wind energy has evolved from a small industry active in a few countries to a large international industry involving major players in the manufacturing, development, and utility sectors. Coinciding with the industry growth, significant innovation in the technology has resulted in larger sized turbines with lower associated costs of energy and more complex designs in all subsystems—from the rotor to the drivetrain to the electronics and control systems. However, as the deployment of the technology grows and its role within the electricity sector has become more prominent, so have the expectations of the technology in terms of performance, reliability, and cost. For the industry to continue to succeed and become a sustainable source of electricity, innovation in wind energy technology must continue to improve performance and lower the cost of energy while supporting seamless integration of wind energy into the electric grid without creating significant negative impacts on local communities and environments. At the same time, the nature of the issues associated with wind energy design and development are noticeably more complex than in the past due to a variety of factors such as, for example, large turbines sizes, offshore deployment or complex terrains. Looking toward the future, the industry would benefit from an integrated approach that simultaneously addresses turbine design, plant design and development, grid interaction and operation, and mitigation of adverse community and environmental impacts. These activities must be integrated in order to meet this diverse set of goals while recognizing trade-offs that exist between them. In order to address these challenges, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has embarked on the Wind Energy Systems Engineering (WESE) initiative to evaluate how methods of systems engineering can be applied to the research, design, and development of wind energy systems. Systems engineering is a field within engineering that has a long history of application to complex technical systems such as aerospace. As such, the field holds much potential for addressing critical issues that face the wind industry today. This paper represents a first step for understanding this potential and lays out a conceptual design for the development of a WESE framework and tool. It reviews systems engineering methods as applied to related technical systems and illustrates how these methods can be combined in a WESE framework to meet the research, design, and development needs for the future of the industry. Subsequent efforts will focus on developing and implementing a framework based on the conceptual design