The American Wake Experiment (AWAKEN): leveraging observations to create international benchmarks

The American Wake Experiment (AWAKEN) constitutes a comprehensive large-scale field campaign focused on observing and simulating the interactions between the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) and operating wind farms. This ambitious field campaign, which started in fall 2022 and is running through spring 2024, is focused on a relatively narrow region encompassing five closely spaced wind plants in northern Oklahoma. The project is the result of a collaboration between multiple research institutions primarily funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and led by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and other DOE national laboratories.

During the AWAKEN experiment, researchers have strategically deployed in-situ and remote-sensing instruments over several observation sites around and within the wind plants. Additionally, some existing wind turbines have been instrumented, thus serving as further observation points to measure the wind flow around individual turbines. With its 14 scanning lidars (both ground-based and nacelle-mounted), 8 profiling lidars, 2 X-band radars, several sonic anemometers, thermodynamic profilers, and other meteorological instruments, the AWAKEN campaign allows to collect an unprecedented amount of observations to accurately quantify the complex interactions between wind plants and the surrounding atmosphere.

The phenomena of interest being observed include wakes behind both individual turbines and wind plants, blockage upstream of the wind plants, internal boundary layer growth over the wind plants, increased turbulence within and downwind of the wind plants, and changes in the local meteorology, such as increased mixing and evapotranspiration downwind of the plants. For each of these core phenomena, AWAKEN aims to establish internationally recognized benchmarking exercises, thereby facilitating the validation of simulations that encompass wind plants across varying scales. These benchmarks are poised to serve as standardized data sets for the purpose of validating and comparing models within the realms of both wind energy and atmospheric studies and are anticipated to remain invaluable resources for years to come.

This presentation will offer a glimpse into some of the encouraging findings derived from the AWAKEN observations, specifically concerning the effects of wakes on wind velocity and atmospheric turbulence. Moreover, a discussion will ensue regarding the strategic utilization of these findings in the formulation of the AWAKEN international benchmarks.