High-performance Computing to Support Wind Energy Research

Speaker: Professor Sylvain Laizet, Imperial College London

High-performance computing (HPC) has emerged as a crucial tool for advancing wind energy research and development. The ever-increasing demand for clean and renewable energy sources, coupled with the inherent complexities of wind energy systems, requires the use of HPC to address the various challenges in this field. This talk will highlight the significance, applications, and potential benefits of HPC for wind energy research.

I will briefly introduce the open-source framework Xcompact3d, dedicated to the study of turbulent flows on HPC systems. Based on high-order finite-difference schemes on a Cartesian mesh, it combines accuracy, efficiency, versatility and scalability. Xcompact3d can be used as a wind farm simulator for simulating and analysing wind energy scenarios in a virtual environment. I will present a collection of results ranging from the study of the stability of wind turbine tip vortices, the entrainment process in large-scale wind farms, some layout optimisations with complex terrains, and some power maximisation studies using wake steering.

Part of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF) series