Detailed Observations of Complex Flow due to Wind
Turbine Wakes We utilize profiling lidar (Aitken et al. J Tech 2012, Rhodes and Lundquist BLM 2013), scanning lidar (Smalikho et al. J Tech 2013, Mirocha et al. JRSE 2014, Aitken et al. J Tech 2014),
radiometers (Friedrich et al. GRL 2012), and meteorological towers (Vanderwende and Lundquist ERL 2012, Clifton et al. JSEE 2013)
to study the development and propagation of wind turbine wakes in different atmospheric conditions, with
special interest in wind farms co-located with agriculture (Rajewski et al. BAMS 2013).
Atmospheric Impacts on Wind Energy
Production Atmospheric stability impacts wind turbine power production (Wharton and Lundquist WE 2012) sometimes in contradictory ways (Wharton & Lundquist ERL 2012 vs Vanderwende & Lundquist ERL 2012)
depending on local meteorology. Neural networks can extend limited
measurements at a site towards improved resource assessment (Clifton et al. ERL 2013)
Mesoscale Modeling of Wind Farms To assess the local and regional impacts of wind energy development, we have implemented a wind farm parameterization into the Weather Research and Forecasting model. The Fitch et a. parameterization (MWR, 2012a, 2012b) is available with every WRF download since version 3.3. In simulations of the CASES-99 GABLS case, the wind farm wake varies throughout the diurnal cycle, with the maximum downwind surface temperature increases ~ 0.5K at night (MWR, 2013) consistent with observations. Comparisons between this elevated drag model and climate simulations representing wind farms simply with enhanced surface roughness show nearly the opposite local impacts on surface temperature (Fitch et al. J Climate 2013).
Large Eddy Simulations of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer Improved turbulence models (MWR 2010b) and/or immersed boundary methods (MWR 2010a, MWR 2012) may be required to simulate complex flow in stable atmospheric boundary layers or in regions of complex terrain.
Urban Meteorology Cities can
create their own microclimates with interesting implications for
detailed simulations of flow in urban areas (Lundquist and Chan JAMC 2006; Lundquist and Mirocha JAMC 2008) and air pollution events (Hu et al. JAMC 2013). Immersed boundary methods may be required for simulations in urban areas (Lundquist, Chow, and Lundquist MWR 2010, 2012).