Energetica India Magazine - September 2022

40 energetica INDIA- September_2022 A recent study by ArcVera Renewables confirms the severe under-prediction of long-range wake losses by engineering wake loss models in common use and in- vestigates long-range wake loss potential at the New York Bight offshore devel- opment sites. Velocity deficits, as high as 1 m/s or 10%, persist up to or greater than 100 km downwind of large offshore arrays, leading to long-range energy defi- cits much greater than expected by most subject matter experts in the industry. ArcVera’s methodology of utilizing the Weather Research and Forecast- ing (WRF) model, a firmly established high-fidelity numerical weather predic- tion model, is a core expertise of ArcVe- ra Renewables. For the purpose of the long-distance wake study, the ArcVera WRF model uses Wind Farm Parameter- ization (WFP) to account for the effects of the wind turbines in the domain. The New York Bight offshore lease areas WIND ENERGY Mark Stoelinga PhD - Lead, Atmospheric Science Innovation and Applications, ArcVera Renewables Long-distance wake losses could cause energy deficits to offshore wind mega-projects at a scale “much greater than expected” Using validated, high-fidelity long-range wake loss modeling, ArcVera Renewables found in their new study that commonly used engineering wake models vastly underpredict energy losses due to external wakes. ArcVera calls for further critical research into long-distance wake losses of offshore wind plants. Figure 1. Map of New York Bight offshore lease areas (orange outlines). New Jersey lease areas are also shown (blue outlines). Orange dots indicate hypothetical turbine arrays in lease areas 0538, 0539, 0541, and 0542. Green triangles indicate floating lidar sites E05 and E06. The wind rose in the right panel is from lidar measurements at site E06. represent 488,000 hectares of potential offshore wind development. The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) auctioned the leases in Febru- ary 2022, for a total value of $4.37 bil- lion dollars. The study analyzed two separate cases to estimate the external waking effect on lease area OCS-A 0538 by lease areas OCS-A 0539, OCS-A 0541, and OCS-A 0542. Case 1 parameterized the model using representative theoretical 15-MW wind turbines in the OCS-A 0541 and OCS-A 0542 lease areas. In Case 2, the