Project description
Studying entrainment in offshore wind energy
Kinetic energy entrainment is an essential process in offshore wind farms, and the only process feeding in energy into very large ('infinite') wind farms. Further analysis and study of the process is needed for the offshore wind industry and related planning policy. The EU-funded Train2Wind project is a early stage researcher training network aiming to investigate the entrainment process and identify whether there is a limit to the installation density of offshore wind farms. It will apply advanced numerical models and wind tunnel experiments in combination with high technology observation tools such as drones, lidars and satellites. The project will access some of the largest offshore wind farms and their data delivering essential knowledge for both the wind farm industry and the government agencies working on marine spatial planning.
Objective
TRAIN2WIND is a PhD TRAINing school analysing enTRAINment in offshore WIND farms with computer models and experiments. By its very nature, a wind turbine extracts energy from the wind, which is replenished from the wind field on the sides and above due to the ambient turbulence. However, offshore the turbulence is lower, and wind farms are typically larger than onshore, therefore the wind can only be replenished from above in a process called entrainment. TRAIN2WIND will investigate the entrainment process using advanced high-resolution computer modelling and wind tunnel models together with measurements of the wind field above, in and downstream of large wind farms, using lidars, radars, satellites and Unmanned Aerial Systems.
Some of the largest operators of offshore wind farms will provide access to the data and the wind farms in order to investigate whether there is a limit to offshore wind power installation density coming from the refreshment of momentum in very large wind farms or clusters. For them, and for the government agencies currently preparing the Marine Spatial Plan for the European waters, updated knowledge of entrainment and the associated potential limits to wind power extraction offshore is paramount to avoid mis-allocation of tens of billions of euros when planning offshore wind farms too dense or too close.
Besides the natural science package, one humanities PhD student will investigate the collaboration between the researchers from a social science and collaboration tools perspective. The project will not only train PhDs, it will also give shorter opportunities to fellows who just want to commit to one year at a time, thus training a total of 20 fellows.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringsatellite technology
- natural sciences
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringaircraft
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energywind power
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringinformation engineeringtelecommunicationsradio technologyradar
Keywords
Programme(s)
Coordinator
2800 Kongens Lyngby
Denmark