Several strategies have already been proposed to optimize the overall power output of a wind farm. These are mainly open-loop strategies, whose potential for success is extremely dependent on the accuracy of the model used for its design.

CL-Windcon will take farm-level controls from the current non-existing or basic static approach to dynamic open and closed-loop control strategies. Dynamic closed-loop wind farm control will be capable of dealing with both time-varying inflow conditions and model mismatch/uncertainties, thereby removing important technological barriers.

In particular, the project will use a cooperative wind farm and wind turbine closed-loop control paradigm which treats the entire wind farm as a comprehensive real-time optimization problem. This approach will combine measurement data and more precise dynamic flow field models, and will incorporate a balance between energy production, loads, lifetime and O&M costs, aimed at minimizing lifetime LCoE. CL-Windcon’s ambition is not only to modify the way wind farms are operated nowadays, but also how they will be designed in the coming future. The main control enabling technologies developed within the project will be:

• Axial induction control, in which some of the turbines upstream within a farm will lower their energy capture thereby increasing the wind velocity and reducing the turbulence downstream.

• Wake redirection, in which some of the turbines within a wind farm will redirect their wakes to reduce the wake effects on other turbines further downstream.

• Supporting wind farm control technologies for further load mitigation.