With the federal government planning to hold the largest sale of offshore wind farm leases in the nation’s history, a new Cornell study could help inform the development of offshore wind farms by providing detailed models characterizing the frequency, intensity and height of low-level regions of fast-moving winds over the U.S.
With the federal government planning to hold the largest sale of offshore wind farm leases in the nation’s history, a new Cornell study could help inform the development of offshore wind farms by providing detailed models characterizing the frequency, intensity and height of low-level regions of fast-moving winds over the U.S. Atlantic coastal zone.
The research, “Occurrence of Low-Level Jets Over the Eastern U.S. Coastal Zone at Heights Relevant to Wind Energy,” published Jan. 9 in the journal Energies. The study finds that low-level jets – pronounced regions of high wind speeds occurring within a vertical wind-speed profile – do occur low enough to reach wind turbine rotor planes at planned wind farms offshore from the U.S. East Coast, according to co-author Jeanie Aird, doctoral student in the Barthelmie Wind Energy Laboratory in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the College of Engineering.
Low-level jets – fast-moving currents of air in the lowest 2 kilometers of the atmosphere – can have pros and cons for wind turbines. They usually result in an increase in wind speed which can improve turbine performance, such as power output, but they can also increase the loads on turbine blades and towers with higher wind shear and turbulence. Understanding their occurrence is important for planning wind turbine longevity and power production.
Aird analyzed two years of simulations from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model provided by Sara C. Pryor, professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She found that low-level jets occur more frequently at the offshore wind energy lease areas south of Massachusetts than those in the New York Bight (stretching roughly from coastal New Jersey to eastern Long Island) and further south.
Read more at: Cornell University
