Characterizing a 40-MW Modern Wind Power Plant by Field Data Measurements

The weather and geographical location affect the character of a wind power plant. Understanding the unique behavior of a wind power plant is very important to optimize wind power plant operation from technical perspectives and financial aspects of the wind power plant. This paper characterizes an existing wind power plant to understand the behavior of a site-specific wind power plant. This paper presents the wind power plant based on location, the prevailing wind direction, the daily and seasonal average wind speeds. We monitored the field data from each turbine and the measurement at the point of interconnection (POI) where the wind power plant connects to the grid. We measure the average wind speed, power, and direction every minute. Simulation of the wind resource in the time domain throughout the year benefits the wind plant operator from monetizing the behavior of the wind plant at this Site. It also helps the utility host understand and plan the overall generating resources for long-term and short-term planning. In this way, we can forecast the annual energy production, the spinning reserve needed to balance the wind power plant, the transmission congestions that may occur, and the potential storage size/placement within the power grid in the future expansion of renewable deployment. The investigation described in this paper can guide the future design of wind turbine control, wind power plant control, and power system control.