Whiffle Wind
With Whiffle Wind, you can now run your own LES simulations with just a few simple clicks. Leverage highly accurate wind data that analyzes complex wind flow dynamics such as wakes, turbulence, and blockage and optimize your wind resource and energy yield analysis.
Access breakthrough LES technology
via a user-friendly web app
In the dynamic domain of wind energy, making informed decisions based on accurate wind data is crucial. Whiffle Wind empowers wind energy professionals with seamless access to wind insights that capture aerodynamic phenomena such as turbulence, wakes, blockage and cluster effects, for enhanced wind resource and energy yield analysis. Harness the hyper-local accuracy of LES technology via an easy-to-use web interface and reduce uncertainties and financial risks in your wind farm design and planning process.
How does it work?
Setting up a simulation is easy:
- Provide run-setup data
- Submit your simulation
- Download your outputs
What's new? Explore Whiffle Wind's newest features:
- Interactive map: See turbine and metmast locations post-simulation.
- Analytics: Analyze Windrose and Weibull graph insights.
- Performance overview: Gauge individual turbine metrics via the aggregated results table.
Features
- Advanced LES modelling
- Individual turbine integration
- Effortless wind farm data import
- Engineer-friendly output (.csv, .netcdf & .wrg)
- Transparent pricing for each simulation
- Customizable time-periods
- Virtual met mast versatility
- API access possible
- Benefit from the hyper-local accuracy of LES technology that captures effects such as wakes, turbulence, and blockage at a 100 X 100m resolution.
- Navigate an intuitive web interface that easily integrates into your existing workflow to further enhance your wind resource assessments.
- Achieve accuracy tailored to your specific site requirements, irrespective of terrain complexity, location or the intricacies of wind turbine clusters.
Make informed decisions based on physics-resolving technology.
FAQs
Are wakes and global blockage effects included?
Yes. LES physically models the phenomena of wind, pressure and atmospheric stability and their interaction with wind turbine-induced wake and blockage effects. Therefore, we don’t have to rely on non-physical/empirical correction factors for example blockage effects and deep-array effects
Are external wind farm effects included?
If external wind farms are not included in the simulation, then neither will their effects on the target wind farm be included. However, if external wind farms are added to the simulation, then their effects on the target wind farm will be modelled and included. If you wish to have additional analysis of external effects, you may want to consider making use of Whiffle’s Consulting service. For more information, feel free to send an email to info@whiffle.nl.
What is LES?
Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is a model for turbulence and is gaining increased attention in the wind energy sector. The benefits of LES to model the wake and global blockage effects of wind farms lie in the fact it can model the interaction between wind farms and the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). A recent overview on various aspects of the atmospheric flow through wind farms is presented in Stevens and Meneveau’s 2017 paper: Flow Structure and Turbulence in Wind Farms, volume 49.
How does the long-term correction work?
The short answer is: it uses the statistical relationship (conditional probability density) between wind farm power predicted by the LES, and ERA5 wind speed. We then integrate this statistical relationship over the distribution of 10-15 years of ERA5 wind speed. This gives an estimate of the mean power that would be predicted by a 10-15 year LES run. The long answer will soon be available in a published paper. Certainly feel free to watch Whiffle’s list of published papers here!
Can I perform bias correction based on local measurements?
It’s not possible to perform this directly within Whiffle Wind. However, our consulting service can certainly perform this for you. You can contact Whiffle Consulting via info@whiffle.nl.
Can I make a power forecast?
Yes, but not through Whiffle Wind. We have a separate forecast service that can provide wind and solar power forecasts, wind speed forecasts, and any number of other meteorological forecasts you may be interested in. See our forecasting service for more information here.
What is the uncertainty of Whiffle Wind’s AEP prediction?
Using SCADA data of wind farms, it is possible to make ex-post assessments of Annual Energy Production (AEP) predictions. Based on a small (N ≤ 10) sample of wind farms that Whiffle has modelled, we estimate the mean error of AEP predictions are around 2% (GRASP underpredicts AEP) with a standard deviation of 4%. These numbers are based on direct GRASP output without any long-term correction or correction of mean wind speed biases. Therefore, this number represents not only errors in aerodynamic losses, but also errors in the mean wind speed.
What is the resolution and why?
The default resolution of our LES is 100 m x 100 m in the horizontal plane and 25 m in the vertical. Our LES has been extensively validated on a wide range of sites (onshore, offshore, complex terrain) and wind farms for this resolution and provides the best trade-off between cost and accuracy.
If you require other resolutions, please consider Whiffle’s Consultancy service which can be contacted via info@whiffle.nl.
What is the mesoscale domain size and resolution?
To bridge the gap between ERA5’s 30 km resolution and our 100 m resolution LES, an in-house, GPU-resident meso-scale model is run concurrently to generate the boundary conditions for our LES on the fly. This model is run on a typical meso-scale resolution of 2 km and on a domain of a few hundred kilometers depending on the size of the LES domain.
Is the simulation domain shown on the map the LES domain or the mesoscale domain?
The rectangle drawn on the map within Whiffle Wind represents the LES domain. The LES domain is then nested within the larger mesoscale domain.
Can I easily import an entire wind farm?
Yes! For instructions see the video manual here at 7:10.
Can I easily import a turbine type?
Yes! For instructions see the video manual here at 3:20.
How much does it cost?
The cost is based upon the domain size and duration of the simulation. To get a general idea of costs:
A 12.8 km x 12.8 km one day simulation will cost around 6 Euro. A 12.8 km x 12.8 km full year simulation will cost around 2000 Euro.
A 51.2 km x 51.2 km one day simulation will cost around 21 Euro. A 51.2 km x 51.2 km full year simulation will cost around 7700 Euro.
Exact costs are shown prior to submitting a run; therefore, you will always know the cost up front.
What is the largest domain that can be simulated?
Currently a 51.2 km x 51.2 km domain is the largest. However, we’re working hard to make this even larger! If you need a larger domain, certainly feel free to contact Whiffle’s Consulting service via info@whiffle.nl.
How long will it take for the simulation to run?
This depends on the domain size and length of the simulation, as well as how many other simulations have been requested and are in the queue. As a rough guideline, generally a one-day simulation should be available the next day or sooner, and generally a full year simulation should be available the next week or sooner.
Related insights
Demystifying blockage effects
Exploring the Impact of Atmospheric Stability on IJmuiden Ver Production Estimates
Exploring Deep Wake Effects in Multi-Gigawatt Wind Farms
Ultra-high-resolution wind resource and energy yield insights are now accessible via a user-friendly web interface.
