A suitable test site was located in the United States’ Midwest, with ideal conditions for power curve testing at various wind speeds up to and beyond rated power. The selected wind farm is located in flat and homogenous terrain, with a met mast equidistant to the test and reference turbines. Both the test and reference turbines were Vestas V100-1.8MW MK7 variants, and were free of any up-wind terrain obstructions, including neighboring turbines. Before the verification campaign, a historical assessment of the turbines’ relative annual energy production also proved statistically that the turbines had a similar performance over time. Field test validates power performance of Aerodynamic Upgrades in real conditions Our actual verification campaign spanned more than three months, during which a total of 350 hours of data were collected to establish the reference power curve and the upgraded test power curve. In addition to sensor checks, outlier removal and wind resource filtering, we only collected valid data when both test turbines presented the same operational characteristics. This meant any normal operational stops or maintenance windows were disregarded. The measured power curves from the reference and test turbines allowed us to establish a power curve delta. This was used to validate the simulated power curves for the different turbine types, and to compute the relative increase in annual energy production for generic wind classes. The verification programme’s final results indicate that the test turbine with Aerodynamic Upgrades achieved improved annual energy production of 1.1% more than the reference turbine in IEC3 conditions. This is a slight increase over the simulated power curve, which suggested an improvement of 1.0%. The uncertainty of the field measurement is ± 0.3%. The results of the field verification campaign validate the simulations performed at Vestas’ R&D department during the development stage of both the V90 and V100 blades, which are part of the same aerofoil family and blade-build technology. A part of Vestas PowerPlus™ Vestas PowerPlus™ is a suite of products designed to improve the annual energy production of previously-installed wind turbines by incorporating the latest innovations in the wind industry. In addition to Aerodynamic Upgrades, Vestas PowerPlus™ includes Power Uprate, Extended Cut Out and Power Performance Optimisation software. Vestas PowerPlus™ upgrades have been implemented on more than 1,300 wind turbines worldwide, delivering up to 5%* more energy. If you would like to learn more about how Aerodynamic Upgrades and Vestas PowerPlus™ can benefit your business, please contact your local Vestas Services office. *Dependent on wind and site conditions
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