Estimation of the power loss due to wake–turbine interaction in the Eólica del Sur wind farm located in La Ventosa, Oaxaca, Mexico

Wake effect can severely impact the energy output of a wind farm. In this study, the efficiency losses caused by wakes in the Eolica del Sur wind farm, located in La Ventosa, Oaxaca, Mexico, are estimated and compared to the performance of an optimized turbine layout. First of all, wind data were obtained from both in-situ measurements and a global reanalysis (ERA5) to characterize the atmospheric wind distribution in the wind farm. Since the ERA5 yielded a value of 9.6 m/s much lower than the in-situ measurement equal to 17.5 m/s, it was chosen an incident wind speed close to the in-situ data. The wind direction was correctly reproduced by ERA5. Then, the wake effect was modeled using a Gaussian analytical approximation for the velocity deficit downstream of a turbine, followed by a linear wake superposition scheme to evaluate the combination of wakes. This wind farm achieves an average total efficiency of 59.5% with wake losses estimated at 3.57%. This corresponds to an average power loss equal to 8.7 MW, equivalent to the output of approximately 3.7 wind turbines operating under the average wind conditions. Then, an iterative algorithm was used to optimize the turbine layout within the wind farm boundaries. The obtained layout achieved a slightly higher efficiency of 60.3%. This result shows that the wind farm’s conditions and turbine characteristics enable most turbines to operate near their rated capacity, mitigating significantly the potential wake effect on the power output. Nevertheless, this study reveals that estimating the power output in La Ventosa solely based on wind reanalysis would underestimate the wind resources.