An Innovative Correction Method of Wind Speed for Efficiency Evaluation of Wind Turbines

The performance of horizontal axis Wind Turbines (WTs) is strongly affected by the wind speed entering in their rotor. Generally, this quantity is not available, because the wind speed is measured on the nacelle behind the turbine rotor, providing a lower value. Therefore, two correction methods are usually employed, requiring two input quantities: the wind speed on the back of the turbine nacelle and the wind speed measured by a meteorological mast close to the turbines under analysis. However, the presence of this station in wind farms is rare and the number of WTs in the wind farm is high. This paper proposes an innovative correction, named “Statistical Method” (SM), that evaluates the efficiency of WTs by estimating the wind speed entering in the WTs rotor. This method relies on the manufacturer power curve and the data measured by the WT anemometer only, thus having the possibility to be also applied in wind farms without a meteorological station. The effectiveness of such a method is discussed by comparing the results obtained by the standard methods implemented on two turbines (rated power = 1.5 MW and 2.5 MW) of a wind power plant (nominal power = 80 MW) in Southern Italy.