Building upon a recent study that showed windbreaks to be effective in increasing the\npower output of a wind turbine, the potential of windbreaks in a large wind farm is explored\nusing simplified formulations. A top-down boundary layer approach is combined with methods\nof estimating both the roughness effects of windbreaks and the induced inviscid speed-up for\nnearby turbines to investigate power production impact for several layouts of infinite wind farms.\nResults suggest that the negative impact of windbreak wakes for an infinite wind farm will outweigh\nthe local inviscid speed-up for realistic inter-turbine spacings, with the break-even point expected\nat a spacing of âË?¼25 rotor diameters. However, the possibility that windbreaks may be applicable\nin finite and other wind farm configurations remains open. Inspection of the windbreak porosity\nreveals an impact on the magnitude of power perturbation, but not whether the change is positive or\nnegative. Predictions from the boundary-layer approach are validated with power measurements\nfrom large-eddy simulations.
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