5 MW Wind Turbine Annual Energy Production Improvement by Flow Control Devices

Several flow control devices have been studied in recent years. Majority of them were designed firstly for aeronautical purposes. At present many research is aimed to introduce these devices in wind turbines (WTs) in order to optimize their aerodynamic performance. The main goal of the present work is to analyze the influence of passive flow control devices, Vortex Generators and Gurney Flaps, on the Annual Energy Production (AEP) of a large Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT). Consequently, BEM based calculations were performed in order to study their effect on the NREL offshore 5 MW Baseline Wind Turbine. Obtained results show an increment in the maximum value of the power coefficient, Cp_max, and a considerable improvement of the AEP.