A collaboration between University of Southampton researchers and London-based business Flightform Insights is carving out a more energy-efficient future for wind farms – thanks to satellite imagery.

University of Southampton expertise in fluid dynamics has enabled Flightform Insights achieve its vision of optimising the layout of offshore wind farms by minimising losses caused by the influence of the turbine wake on the water surface. To do this, the two organisations collaborated via a grant from SPRINT (the Space Research and Innovation Network for Technology) to develop a novel wake and wind generation model to understand how ‘wind shadows’ cast by turbines reduce the wind speed and alter the wind flow characteristics for other turbines downwind. The project used satellite images of European offshore wind farms and existing theoretical models to observe wakes on the water surface. This enabled them to build a wind generation model to predict the energy output and estimated energy loss from any configuration of wind turbines.

“Our expertise covers maritime engineering and renewable energy, and the team at Flightform were looking for specific expertise in joining up the data to confidently predict the performance of wind turbine arrays. It was interesting to understand how turbines perform in arrays and use the data to effectively operate wind turbines.”

Stephen Turnock, Professor of Maritime Fluid Dynamics and Head of the Department of Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southampton.