Modeling Wind Flow Around Single Obstructions to Aid in Wind Turbine Placement Decisions

Wind energy is usually created by large-scale wind farms with hundreds of turbines. Our sponsor, One Energy, takes a different approach and provides power to manufacturing plants by installing a small number of turbines on their property. Our team was tasked with creating a new modeling method to model wind flow around single small obstructions to aid in One Energy’s wind turbine placement decisions. In this presentation, we examine existing modeling methods, turbulence, modeling, validation, and testing to determine the impact of small, single obstructions on wind velocity and direction.