WindStation is a

wind energy software Specialized wind energy software applications aid in the development and operation of wind farms. Pre-feasibility and feasibility analysis The RETScreen software wind power model is designed to evaluate energy production and savings, costs, emiss ...

which uses

computational fluid dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate ...

(CFD) to conduct

wind resource assessment Wind resource assessment is the process by which wind power developers estimate the future energy production of a wind farm. Accurate wind resource assessments are crucial to the successful development of wind farms. History Modern wind resource ...

s in complex terrain. The physical background and its numerical implementation are described in. and the official manual of the software. WindStation takes the terrain description in raster format as well as wind observations and atmospheric stability as input data. Solution is provided for the non-linear fluid dynamics equations, with inclusion of Coriolis effects. The implemented nesting technique enables the user to run the simulation with measured wind data or mesoscale data. Domain and meshing provide flexibility, including features such as automatic alignment with free stream direction. WindStation can be used to prepare wind resource assessments in complex terrain in order to quantify the feasibility of

wind farms Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few h ...

. This is achieved by taking into account measured wind data from a measurement mast or reanalysis data as well as terrain and roughness data. It can also be used to evaluate the flow around buildings in cities. Additionally, WindStation can be applied for specific analysis of urban climate including air pollution and dispersion calculations. Batch run features allow the setup and calculation of multiple projects, including climatology calculations for statistical analysis. Postprocessing tools are available for visualisation as well as data export options. WindStation was originally developed to simulate and predict fire propagation. The software can be used by

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each yea ...

manufacturers, wind farm developers,

consulting firm A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expertise and specialised labour for a fee, through the use of consultants. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad rang ...

s and wind farm operators. A free trial version of the software including all features and modules can be requested online.

Description

WindStation solves the momentum (Navier-Stokes) equations, continuity, energy and turbulence equations, using a control volume approach in a terrain-following mesh. The underlying method relies on the SIMPLEC algorithm applied to a collocated grid arrangement. The pressure correction equation is solved using a multigrid method for faster convergence. WindStation provides a graphical user interface consisting of a main window including the visualisation of terrain and roughness data as well as positions of turbines and input climatology data. The main simulation details are shown as expandable windows. The menus for changing numerical and boundary conditions as well as input data can be reached over the software menu or small icons. WindStation provides file formats which can be read by WindPRO,

WAsP A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...

and

ArcGIS ArcGIS is a family of client, server and online geographic information system (GIS) software developed and maintained by Esri. ArcGIS was first released in 1999 and originally was released as ARC/INFO, a command line based GIS system for manipul ...

. WindStation is available in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

and French are currently under preparation.

Case studies

WindStation has been applied to case studies and validated with actual wind measurements in several studies. Also, it was validated using the widely used Bolund case study. The wind farm models of WindStation were tested and validated in.{{cite journal , first1=A. M. , last1=Gameiro Lopes , last2 = Vincente , first2 = A. H. S. N. , last3=Herrera Sánchez, first3=O. , last4=Daus, first4=R. , last5=Koch, first5=H. , title=Operation assessment of analytical wind turbine wake models , journal=Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics , volume=220 , year=2022 , url=https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1e6TPc73TaAIB

References

Computer-aided engineering software

Description

Case studies

See also

References