Wake steering of wind turbine in the presence of a two-dimensional hill

Wake interference between turbines in wind farms can lead to significant losses in the overall power output from farms. Wake steering is a strategy in which yaw is introduced in the upstream turbines with respect to the incoming flow field to reduce wake interference with downstream turbines. To characterize the effectiveness of wake steering for turbines located on a hilly terrain, an open source simulator for wind farm applications has been used to perform large eddy simulations (LESs) of a 5 megawatt (MW) wind turbine located at the base of a sinusoidal hill. The height and length of the hill, as well as the turbine yaw angle, are systematically varied over a series of 10 simulations in which inflow corresponds to the neutral atmospheric boundary layer. Results from the LES statistics show that, for a given yaw angle, the power output from the turbine is determined primarily by the height of the hill, rather than the length of the hill. The magnitude of the centerline wake deficit and equivalent wake radius are reduced due to the presence of hills and are not very sensitive to the yaw angle. The theoretical prediction of the wake recovery appears to qualitatively agree with the LES statistics. The yaw-induced spanwise wake deflection is not affected by the hill height significantly. Streamwise vorticity distribution within the lower half of the wake intensifies due to the presence of strong mean velocity gradients present near the surface of the hill, which, in turn, leads to a reduction in the distortion of the shape of a wake deficit cross section.