Specialized wind energy software applications aid in the development and operation of wind farms.
Pre-feasibility and feasibility analysis
The RETScreen software wind power model is designed to evaluate energy production and savings, costs, emission reductions, financial viability and risk for central-grid, isolated-grid and off-grid wind energy projects, for multi-turbine and single-turbine hybrid systems. Developed by the Government of Canada, the software is free, multilingual, and includes links to wind energy resource maps.
The Wind Data Generator (WDG) is a Wind Energy Software tool capable of running WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) model to create a wind atlas and to generate wind data at resolutions of 3 km to 10 km.
Turbine design
Software helps design wind turbines. There are several aero-elastic packages that are used in this design process.
FOCUS6 aids in the design of wind turbines and turbine components such as rotor blades. It was developed by Knowledge Centre Wind turbine Materials and Constructions (WMC)[1] and Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN).[2]
The National Wind Technology Center (NWTC), a division of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), has developed many packages which are used by turbine manufacturers and researchers. NWTC has developed a suite of turbine design and performance prediction codes which rely on Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory. WT_Perf uses steady BEM theory to model turbine performance. FAST is a comprehensive aero-elastic simulator which uses unsteady BEM theory to model a turbine as a collection of rigid and flexible bodies in a spatiotemporal field of turbulent flow. Germanischer Lloyd found FAST suitable for "the calculation of onshore wind turbine loads for design and certification."[3][4]
The open source software QBlade developed by the wind energy research group of Hermann Föttinger Institute of TU Berlin (Chair of Fluid Dynamics) is a BEM code coupled with the airfoil simulation code XFOIL. It allows the user to develop/import airfoil shapes, simulate them and use them for the design and simulation of wind turbine blades/rotors with the use of steady state BEM theory. The software is built with the Qt framework thus it includes a graphical user interface.
The open source software Vortexje, developed by Baayen & Heinz GmbH in Berlin, is an unsteady 3D panel method implementation suitable for dynamic simulation of vertical and horizontal axis wind turbines. Easily coupled with other simulation environments such as Simulink and Dymola, it is suitable for aerodynamic optimization, fluid-structure interaction problems, and unsteady control system simulation.
Ashes is a software package for analyzing aerodynamic and mechanical forces for onshore and offshore horizontal axis wind turbines. It is based on research done at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway.
| Software | Publisher | Latest stable version | License | Certified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ashes [5] | SIMIS as | 3.15 | proprietary | No |
| Bladed | DNV GL | 4.9 | proprietary | Yes |
| Fast | NREL | 8.12 | open source | Yes |
| Flex | DTU Lyngby | 5 | proprietary | Yes |
| FOCUS6 | WMC | 6 | proprietary | No |
| HAWC2 | DTU Wind Energy | 12.2 | proprietary | No |
| QBlade | TU Berlin | 0.8 | open source | No |
| Simpack | Simpack | 2017.2 | proprietary | No |
| Vortexje | Baayen & Heinz GmbH | - | open source | No |
Flow modeling
Wind flow modeling software predicts important wind characteristics at locations where measurements are not available. Furow is a software which offers a lineal flow model and a Computational fluid dynamic model in the same software. WAsP was created at Denmarks' Risø National Laboratory. WAsP uses a potential flow model to predict how wind flows over terrain at a site. Meteodyn WT, Windie, WindSim, WindStation [6] and the opensource code ZephyTOOLS[7] use computational fluid dynamics instead, which are potentially more accurate, but more computationally intensive.[8]
| Software | Publisher | Latest stable version | License | Certified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Continuum | Cancalia/One Energy | 2.2.5 | proprietary | - |
| Furow | Etulos Solute | 2.0 | proprietary | Yes |
| WAsP | DTU Wind Energy | 12 | proprietary | Yes |
| WindSim | Vector AS | 8.0 | opensource | Yes |
| Meteodyn WT | Meteodyn | 6.1 | proprietary | Yes |
| ZephyCFD | Zephy-Science | 19.12 | GPL3 | Yes |
| WindStation | menzio GmbH | 1.3.21 | proprietary | - |
| Windie | Windie Lda. | - | proprietary |
Farm modeling
This software simulates wind farm behavior, most importantly to calculate its energy output. The user can usually input wind data, height and roughness contour lines (topography), turbine specifications, background maps, and define environmental restrictions. Processing this information produces the design of a wind farm that maximizes energy production while accounting for restrictions and construction issues. Packages include Furow, Meteodyn WT, openWind, WindFarm, WindFarmer: Analyst, WindPRO, WindSim and WindStation.[6]
Farm visualization
Wind farm visualization software graphically presents a proposed wind farm, most importantly for the purpose of obtaining building permits. The primary techniques include photomontages, zone-of-visual-impact maps and three-dimensional visualization (perspective views of the landscape often incorporating aerial photography and including turbines and other objects).
| Software | Publisher | Latest stable version | License | Certified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Furow | Etulos Solute | 2.0 | proprietary | Yes |
| openWind | AWS Truepower | proprietary | Yes | |
| windPRO | EMD International A/S | 3.4 | proprietary | |
| Meteodyn WT | Meteodyn | 6.1 | proprietary | Yes |
| ZephyCFD | Zephy-Science | 19.12 | GPL3 | Yes |
| Windplanner | The Imagineers | v3 | proprietary | |
| WindFarmer: Analyst | DNV GL | 1.0 | proprietary |
Farm monitoring
Wind farm monitoring software is a software that allows people to see if the wind turbines are running well or are going to become broken. Other functions of monitoring software is reporting, analysis of measurement data (power curve) and tools for monitoring of environmental constraints (bat control, etc.).
| Software | Publisher | Latest stable version | License | Certified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clir | Clir | proprietary | ||
| Meteodyn SPA | Meteodyn | 2.2 | proprietary | Yes |
| GPM Horizon | GreenPowerMonitor | |||
| Greenbyte Energy Cloud | Greenbyte AB | proprietary | ||
| ROTORsoft | DrehPunkt GmbH | proprietary | ||
| windPRO - PERFORMANCE CHECK module | EMD International A/S | 3.4 | proprietary | |
| windPRO - TR10 module | EMD International A/S | 3.4 | proprietary | Yes |
| windOPS | EMD International A/S | 2 | proprietary |
Prediction software
Main article: Wind power forecasting
For existing wind farms, several software systems exist which produce short and medium term forecasts for the generated power (single farms or complete forecast regions) using existing numerical weather prediction data (NWP) and live (SCADA) farm data as input. Examples of numerical weather prediction models used for this purpose are the European HiRLAM (High Resolution Limited Area Model) and the GFS (Global Forecast System) from NOAA.
References
Knowledge Centre Wind turbine Materials and Constructions (WMC)
Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands
GL Wind Certificate No. ZZ 001A-2005
NWTC Design Codes
"A Novel Tool for Fem Analysis of Offshore Wind Turbines with Innovative Visualization Techniques">“A Novel Tool for Fem Analysis of Offshore Wind Turbines with Innovative Visualization Techniques.” In 22nd International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference, June 2012
Website of menzio GmbH and WindStation
RECHARGE NEWS "New software could make wind farm planning a breeze">
Pereira, R; Guedes, Ricardo; Silva Santos, Carlos (2010-01-01). "Comparing WAsP and CFD wind resource estimates for the "regular" user".
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Wind power
Wind power
High-altitude History By country Land vehicles Offshore Turbines
on public display Windmill
Illustration of a wind turbine
Wind farms
Community-owned Farms by country Offshore farms
by country Onshore farms
Wind turbines
Aerodynamics Airborne Crosswind kite Design Floating Nacelle Pitch bearing QBlade Small Unconventional Vertical axis
Savonius Darrieus Yaw system
Yaw bearing Yaw drive
Wind power industry
Consulting companies Farm management Manufacturers Software Windmade
Manufacturers
Enercon GE Wind Energy
including GE Wind offshore Goldwind Nordex Senvion Siemens Gamesa Suzlon Vestas
Concepts
Betz's law Blade element momentum theory Capacity factor Energy return on investment Wind power forecasting Grid energy storage HVDC Intermittency Variability Laddermill Net energy gain Resource assessment Storage Subsidies Tip-speed ratio Virtual power plant Wind hybrid power systems Wind profile power law
Hellenica World - Scientific Library
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