The course will provide the participant with the necessary tools and understanding to perform energy resource assessment at various scales. The course covers topics like, large-scale atmospheric and mesoscale motion and force balances; relevant thermodynamic effects; basic atmospheric boundary layer structure and flow phenomena; micro- and mesoscale modeling and practices, including basic parameterizations and numerical aspects, turbine representation and wakes; and analysis and use of wind statistics (incl. e.g. wind atlas data).
Learning objectives
After completing this course, the participant is able to:
- List the mechanisms that affect the Annual Energy Production (AEP) of a wind farm.
- Explain the basic driving mechanisms for wind, from global processes down to those linked to the local topography.
- Explain the differences between micro- and mesoscale modelling, and how they can be used together.
- Identify potential errors in the setup of mesoscale and microscale models, through inspection of both inputs/setup and model results.
- Explain the principles, assumptions, and limitations behind a wind atlas (e.g. Global Wind Atlas or regional wind atlases), and use a wind atlas for simple resource estimation.
- Calculate the AEP for simple sites and wind farms, as driven by observations or potentially mesoscale model output.
- Analyse meteorological time series of mean wind and direction with statistical methods.
- Select optimal wind farm layouts based on local conditions.
- Design numerical setup (type[s] of models, parameters, inputs needed) for wind resource assessment campaigns, including observations.
Duration and exam
The course has a duration of 13 weeks and concludes with an oral exam.
ECTS points
By completing the course you will be awarded 5 ECTS points, equivalent to 9-10 hours of studying per week.
Course responsible
Associate Professor Mark C. Kelly, DTU Wind Energy