Modelling the Wind Turbine Inflow with a Reduced Order Model\nbased on SpinnerLidar Measurements

Abstract

Abstract. Preview measurements of the inflow by turbine-mounted lidar systems can be used to optimise wind turbine performance by increasing power production and alleviating structural loads. Here, we apply Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) to the line-of-sight wind speed measurements of a SpinnerLidar obtained from a large eddy simulation of a wind turbine operating in a turbulent atmospheric boundary layer. The aim of this work was to identify the dominant POD modes to derive a reduced order representation of the turbine inflow without making strong assumptions about the flow field. This dimensional reduction is a first step towards the development of a reduced order inflow model (ROM) that offers a trade-off between wind field reconstruction techniques requiring flow assumptions and more complex physics-based representations. We found that only a few modes are required to capture the dynamics of the wind field parameters commonly used for lidar assisted wind turbine control such as the effective wind speed, vertical shear, directional misalignment. A possible interpretation of the modes is presented by direct comparison with these wind field parameters. Evaluating six different metrics in the time and frequency domains related to the spatial, frequency domain and energy quantities, we find that a 10 mode ROM could accurately describe most spatio-temporal variations in the inflow. The reduced order modelling was accomplished using the inherent volume averaging property of lidar devices that attenuates high frequency turbulence with lower importance for the overall turbine response thus allowing significant data compression. Based on the models inflow wind field reconstruction performance, this method has potential use for lidar-assisted control, loads validation and turbulence characterisation.