Could Crop Roughness Impact the Wind Resource at Agriculturally Productive Wind Farm Sites?

Abstract

The high concentration of both large-scale agriculture and wind power production in the United States Midwest region raises new questions concerning the interaction of the two activities. For instance, it is known from internal boundary layer theory that changes in the roughness of the land-surface resulting from crop choices could modify the momentum field aloft, which may impact the properties of the winds encountered by modern turbines. As direct observation of such interaction would require impractical interference in the planting schedules of farmers, we use numerical modeling to quantify the magnitude of crop-roughness effects. A hypothetical farm is inserted into the WRF model near the real location of the 2013 Crop Wind Energy Experiment (CWEX). A month-long period spanning August 2013 is used to evaluate the differences in flows above corn (maize) and soybean crops at the mature, reproductive stage. Simulations are performed comparing the flow above each surface regime, both in the absence and presence of a wind farm, which consists of a parameterized 11x11 array of 1.8 MW Vestas V90 turbines. Appreciable differences in rotor-layer wind speeds emerge, which we use to estimate the economic impact of crop selection on wind power producers.

Date
Nov 11, 2014 3:30 PM — 4:30 PM
Location
Bechtel Collaboratory, Discovery Learning Center
Engineering Center, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309
BRIAN VANDERWENDE

University of Colorado Boulder