Periodic Reporting for period 2 - FarmConners (FarmConners - Paving the Way for Wind Farm Control in Industry)
Période du rapport: 2020-09-01 au 2022-02-28
A large modern wind farm is not just a collection of autonomous wind turbines. It is a wind power plant (WPP), feeding increasingly large amounts of power into the electricity grid. It is also a highly complex physical system where all the turbines actively interact with each other. Wind Farm Control (WFC) investigates this interaction for a collaborative operation within the wind farm, and the concept has been around for more than two decades. The promise of WFC is that through this cooperative behaviour of the wind turbines, the wind field can be influenced to increase power production and reduce loads, i.e. extend the lifetime. Additionally, it enables better integration of wind power to the grid and improved revenue management, especially for the upcoming flexible electricity markets. WFC technology helps making wind power “market fit”, which in turn decreases the project cost and increases the share of the leading green power source.
The FarmConners project supported the implementation and industrialisation of WFC as an additional feature for the development and operation of wind power plants. It provided a unique platform for the marketability of this feature; bringing the state-of-the-art achievements, ongoing projects and industrial interest together to remove barriers for commercial implementation of WFC. Hence, FarmConners aimed to accelerate the industrialisation and commercialisation of WFC through the following 4 objectives
i. Increase confidence in the models and control strategies through a comprehensive validation platform for WFC
Careful validation of the modelling and control actions is of vital importance to build confidence in the value of coordinated WFC. The efficiency of flow models applied to WFC should be evaluated to provide reliable assessment of the performance of WFC. It is further highlighted in the prospect and challenges in wind farm flow control article, an effort led by the frontiers of the research and development of the technology, globally. FarmConners benchmark, as the first of its kind, quantified that challenge and listed several best practices for robust, accurate and reliable modelling within WFC.
ii. Clarify and develop guidelines for certification, standardization and regularization of WFC as a product
Similar to many other innovations in wind energy, there exist many uncertainties around the certification, standardization and regularization of WFC. Many of which are addressed via postion papers released in collaboration between academia, industry and certification bodies.
iii. Showcase of WFC in various electricity market scenarios; compliance and revenue
WFC is beneficial not only for a more intelligent ancillary service provision, but also for a better revenue management, especially for the flexible market scenarios of the (near) future. Investigating 2020 and 2030 scenarios, FarmConners Market Showcases are the first steps in quantifying the further potential of the technology and showed the prospect of multi-objective WFC for maximizing revenue.
iv. Align the EU level activities and increase cross-border coordination of national research in WFC for higher impact
WFC is an increasingly popular research field with many ongoing projects which yields several opportunities for further collaboration. Having all the project coordinators on board, FarmConners facilitated the alignment of the EU level interest in WFC and maximize the impact. Furthermore, it brought the experience (as well as the datasets) of the national activities on WFC research on a unique platform to strengthen the implementation.
The FarmConners project supported the implementation and industrialisation of WFC as an additional feature for the development and operation of wind power plants. It provided a unique platform for the marketability of this feature; bringing the state-of-the-art achievements, ongoing projects and industrial interest together to remove barriers for commercial implementation of WFC. Hence, FarmConners aimed to accelerate the industrialisation and commercialisation of WFC through the following 4 objectives
i. Increase confidence in the models and control strategies through a comprehensive validation platform for WFC
Careful validation of the modelling and control actions is of vital importance to build confidence in the value of coordinated WFC. The efficiency of flow models applied to WFC should be evaluated to provide reliable assessment of the performance of WFC. It is further highlighted in the prospect and challenges in wind farm flow control article, an effort led by the frontiers of the research and development of the technology, globally. FarmConners benchmark, as the first of its kind, quantified that challenge and listed several best practices for robust, accurate and reliable modelling within WFC.
ii. Clarify and develop guidelines for certification, standardization and regularization of WFC as a product
Similar to many other innovations in wind energy, there exist many uncertainties around the certification, standardization and regularization of WFC. Many of which are addressed via postion papers released in collaboration between academia, industry and certification bodies.
iii. Showcase of WFC in various electricity market scenarios; compliance and revenue
WFC is beneficial not only for a more intelligent ancillary service provision, but also for a better revenue management, especially for the flexible market scenarios of the (near) future. Investigating 2020 and 2030 scenarios, FarmConners Market Showcases are the first steps in quantifying the further potential of the technology and showed the prospect of multi-objective WFC for maximizing revenue.
iv. Align the EU level activities and increase cross-border coordination of national research in WFC for higher impact
WFC is an increasingly popular research field with many ongoing projects which yields several opportunities for further collaboration. Having all the project coordinators on board, FarmConners facilitated the alignment of the EU level interest in WFC and maximize the impact. Furthermore, it brought the experience (as well as the datasets) of the national activities on WFC research on a unique platform to strengthen the implementation.
The main results from the reporting period are here summarised per objective
i. Increase confidence in the models and control strategies through a comprehensive validation platform for WFC
Within the FarmConners consortium, with all the WFC stakeholders on board, first the research gap analysis in WFC test and validation is assessed and published as open access article “Expert Elicitation on Wind Farm Control”. Following the assessment, a consensus on the common test cases is achieved. Accordingly, FarmConners launched a common benchmark for code comparison to demonstrate the potential benefits of WFC, such as increased power production and mitigation of loads. The benchmark results are completed with several participants globally. They were first presented in Wind Energy Science Conference (WESC) 2021 and then the full paper is submitted to Wind Energy Science journal with 31 authors contributing to 4 blind tests. With the amendment/deviation approved in Aug 2021, FarmConners acquired resources for further research into the current state of the art as well as the prospects and challenges of the technology and submitted an article to Wind Energy Science journal.
ii. Clarify and develop guidelines for certification, standardization and regularization of WFC as a product
The uncertainties around the certification, standardization and regularization of WFC have been clarified and quantified in the “Position paper on certification, standardisation, and other regulatory issues of Wind Farm Control”, which is the first of its kind, and was followed by a position paper on recommendations for certification and standardisation of wind farm control (WFC), making use of the results and developments of previous 2+ years research within FarmConners.
iii. Showcase of WFC in various electricity market scenarios; compliance and revenue
In order to demonstrate the added value of WFC, FarmConners have introduced a series of showcases consisting of a large reference offshore wind power plant, weather simulation data and estimated electricity prices for both 2020 and 2030. They were presented in Wind Integration Workshop (11-12 Nov 2020) together with a corresponding publication. These open access scenarios enable the WFC community to evaluate the performance of their control algorithms using an internationally recognised tool. The initial results for these Market showcases were presented in WESC 2021 and the full paper is submitted to Wind Energy Science journal. With the amendment/deviation approved in Aug 2021, additional subtasks were defined under WP3 towards integrated WFC, which resulted in 3 articles submitted to Advanced Control for Applications (2-perspective articles) and Wind Energy Science (open-source integrated wind farm controller).
iv. Align the EU level activities and increase cross-border coordination of national research in WFC for higher impact
To strengthen the cooperation and the knowledge transfer, FarmConners introduced a mobility scheme which enhances the researcher mobility to ensure effective execution of the project activities. Due to COVID restrictions on travel, FarmConners could host only 2 physical mobilities. However, the strong collaboration is pursued online with a ‘remote co-working’ format, also referred as virtual mobility. The experiences of the physical and virtual mobility participants are broadcasted in an interview podcast format.
i. Increase confidence in the models and control strategies through a comprehensive validation platform for WFC
Within the FarmConners consortium, with all the WFC stakeholders on board, first the research gap analysis in WFC test and validation is assessed and published as open access article “Expert Elicitation on Wind Farm Control”. Following the assessment, a consensus on the common test cases is achieved. Accordingly, FarmConners launched a common benchmark for code comparison to demonstrate the potential benefits of WFC, such as increased power production and mitigation of loads. The benchmark results are completed with several participants globally. They were first presented in Wind Energy Science Conference (WESC) 2021 and then the full paper is submitted to Wind Energy Science journal with 31 authors contributing to 4 blind tests. With the amendment/deviation approved in Aug 2021, FarmConners acquired resources for further research into the current state of the art as well as the prospects and challenges of the technology and submitted an article to Wind Energy Science journal.
ii. Clarify and develop guidelines for certification, standardization and regularization of WFC as a product
The uncertainties around the certification, standardization and regularization of WFC have been clarified and quantified in the “Position paper on certification, standardisation, and other regulatory issues of Wind Farm Control”, which is the first of its kind, and was followed by a position paper on recommendations for certification and standardisation of wind farm control (WFC), making use of the results and developments of previous 2+ years research within FarmConners.
iii. Showcase of WFC in various electricity market scenarios; compliance and revenue
In order to demonstrate the added value of WFC, FarmConners have introduced a series of showcases consisting of a large reference offshore wind power plant, weather simulation data and estimated electricity prices for both 2020 and 2030. They were presented in Wind Integration Workshop (11-12 Nov 2020) together with a corresponding publication. These open access scenarios enable the WFC community to evaluate the performance of their control algorithms using an internationally recognised tool. The initial results for these Market showcases were presented in WESC 2021 and the full paper is submitted to Wind Energy Science journal. With the amendment/deviation approved in Aug 2021, additional subtasks were defined under WP3 towards integrated WFC, which resulted in 3 articles submitted to Advanced Control for Applications (2-perspective articles) and Wind Energy Science (open-source integrated wind farm controller).
iv. Align the EU level activities and increase cross-border coordination of national research in WFC for higher impact
To strengthen the cooperation and the knowledge transfer, FarmConners introduced a mobility scheme which enhances the researcher mobility to ensure effective execution of the project activities. Due to COVID restrictions on travel, FarmConners could host only 2 physical mobilities. However, the strong collaboration is pursued online with a ‘remote co-working’ format, also referred as virtual mobility. The experiences of the physical and virtual mobility participants are broadcasted in an interview podcast format.
Many of the progress beyond the state of the art is listed in the section above with the main results achieved throughout the project. Although challenged by the COVID regulations early on, FarmConners continued to perform strong collaboration under the new normal and produced several high impact workshops, mini-symposiums, conference presentations and publications.