Characterization of a wind turbine wake evolving over an intertidal zone performed with dual-lidar observations

Abstract. As modern wind power industry quickly develops, it is of high priority to optimize layouts and operations of wind turbines to reduce the influences of wakes induced by upstream wind turbines. The wake behaves complicatedly with land ocean-atmosphere interactions. This complex wake could be observed by two or more synchronously operated Doppler lidars. Accordingly, we characterized a wind turbine wake evolving over an intertidal zone performed with dual-lidar observations. Dynamic process of wakes merging that occurred from approximately 1 D (rotor diameter) downstream was captured and analysed. The phenomenon that wake length increased with rising tide was analysed in details. It suggested that the increase of wake length varied with underlying surface roughness transition from mud to sea water as well as the rising sea level. Finally, wake meandering cases were analyzed in detail. Our research shows that the dual-lidar observation technology is a promising remote sensing tool for characterization of complicated wind turbine wakes.