31

Characterisation of the Power Curve for Wind

Turbines by Stochastic Modelling

E. Anahua, S. Barth and J. Peinke

Summary. We investigate how the power curve of a wind turbine is affected by

turbulent wind fields. The electrical power output can be separated into two parts
namely the relaxation part which describes the dynamic response of the wind turbine
on sudden changes in wind velocity and a noise part. We have shown that those two
parts describe the power-curve properly if they are calculated from stationary wind
measurements. This analysis is very usefull to describe power curve characteristic
for situation with increased turbulent intensities and it can be easily applied to
measured data.

31.1 Introduction
Let us start with the definition of the power curve which is a nonlinear function
of wind velocity

L(u) ∝ u3 .

A standard procedure (IEC 61400-12) to characterise the energy production

of a wind electro converter (WEC) is to measure average values of elect. power
output and longitudinal wind velocity at the hub hight simultaneously. From
those measurements a power curve is obtained by: u → L(u) as shown
in Fig. 31.1 (the brackets denote the ensemble averages). This procedure is
limited due to (1) nonlinearity of the power curve and (2) relaxation time
which describes the dynamic response of the WEC on sudden changes of
wind velocity. Such effects lead to the following inequality: L(u ) = L(u) .
To include those effects into the stationary power curve one could use a Taylor
expansion of second-order which is expressed by

1 ∂2
L(u) = L(u ) + L(u )σu2 ,
2 ∂u2
where σu2 is the variance of the wind velocity. Obviously this method is only
appropiate for the case of symmetric and weak (quasi-laminar) fluctuations
174 E. Anahua et al.

3000

2500
Elec. Power Output [kW]

2000

1500

1000

500

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Wind speed [m/s]
Fig. 31.1. Typical nonlinearity effects on measured power output data of a WEC
of 2 MW [5]. A complex behaviour is observed by the dynamics response on sudden
changes of wind velocity. The dots are instantaneous measured data and the solid
line is the average power output L(u)

around u , i.e. small turbulent intensities ti = σu /u . It is known that

the wind fluctuation distribution presents an anomalous statistics around the
mean value [1], therefore this is again limited. As an improvement, this article
reports that the dynamical behaviour of the power output of a WEC, which
acts as an attractor, can be described by a simple function of relaxation and
noise. We have shown that those two parts describe the power curve properly if
they are calculated from stationary wind measurements. This analysis is very
usefull to describe power curve characteristics for situation with increased
turbulent intensities and it can be easily applied to measured data.

31.2 Simple Relaxation Model

The instantaneous elect. power output of a WEC defined by: L(t) = Lfix (u)
+ (t) can be described by the following relaxation model [2], see also [6]
−αt
(t) ∝ e|
d
L(t) = −α(t) + g(L, t)Γ (t),
dt
 31 Characterisation of the Power Curve for Wind Turbines 175

where −α(t) is the deterministic relaxation of the fluctuations, which growth

and decay exponentially, on the stationary power Lfix (u). The term g(L, t)Γ (t)
describes the influence of dynamical noise from the system, e.g. shutdown
states, pitch-angle control, yaw errors, etc. [5].

31.3 Langevin Method

To obtain the stationary power curve by means of fixed points, the stochastic
temporal state n-vector L(t) = (L(t1 ), L(t2 ), ..., L(tn )) is assumed to be statio-
nary for wind velocity intervals: ua ≤ u < ub with an time evolution τ which
is described by an one-dimensional Langevin-equation [3, 4]
 
d
L(t) = D(1) (L) + D(2) (L) · Γ (t),
dt

where D(1) and D(2) are called drift and diffusion√ coefficients and describe
the deterministic and stochastic part, respectively. D(2) describes the ampli-
tude of the dynamical noise with δ-correlated Gaussian distributed white noise
Γ (t) = 0. These coefficients can be separated and quantified from measured
data by the first (n = 1) and second (n = 2) conditional moments [4]

M (n) (L, τ ) = [L(t + τ ) − L(t)]n |L(t)=L .

Under the condition of L(u) = L. The coefficients are calculated according

1 (n)
D(n) (L) = lim M (L, τ ).
τ →0 τ

Thus, the fixed points of the power, Lfix (u) = min{φD }, where δφD
δL = −D(1) (L)
is the deterministics potential.

31.4 Data Analysis

The analysis was based on measured data of about 1.6 × 106 samples of elect.
power output and wind speed at hub hight of a WEC of 2 MW [5]. First,
D(1) (L) was evaluated in a width of the wind velocity bins of 0.5 m s−1 and
power bins of 40 kW. Next, the fixed points of the power were found by search-
ing the min{φD }. We show evidence that the power exhibited multiple fixed
points for u < 20 m s−1 where the wind generator was switched to other
rated speed change by means of a maximal power extraction (optimal opera-
tion), e.g. Fig. 31.2. Finally, all fixed points of the power were reconstructed
and presented in a two-dimensional vector field analysis D(1) (L, u) of the
deterministics dynamics of power and wind velocity, respectively, Fig. 31.3.
176 E. Anahua et al.

10
(a) 100 (b)

5 0 2

−Φ D1L(u)
D1L(u)

0 −100
1

−5 −200
P(L(u))

−10 −300
1000 1500 2000 1000 1500 2000
Elect. Power L(u) [kW]: <u> = 14.6 [m/s] Elect. Power L(u) [kW]: <u> = 14.6 [m/s]

Fig. 31.2. (a) The deterministic dynamics D(1) (L) of the power for u =
14.6 m s−1 . (b) The correspondent potential φD and the power distribution P (L(u)).
The minima of φD are the fixed points, stable-states. Position 1 and 2 represents a
fixed point and the simple average power, respectively

3000

2500
Elec. Power Output [kW]

2000

1500

1000

500

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Wind Speed [m/s]

Fig. 31.3. Stationary power curve given by the fixed points for all wind velocity
intervals, black line. The arrows represent the deterministic dynamical relaxation of
the power output given by a two-dimensional analysis, D(1) (L, u)

31.5 Conclusion and Outlook

A simple power output model has been described as a function of relaxation
and noise. The stationary power curve has easily been derived by the fixed
 31 Characterisation of the Power Curve for Wind Turbines 177

points method which does not depend any more on the average procedure, i.e.
location specific with increased turbulence intensity. Heretofore the relaxation
time is described analytically as linear and constant. A detailed analysis on
the dynamical relaxation is actually researching together with the response
model proposed by Rauh [6] for predicting power output.

References
1. F. Boettcher, Ch. Renner, H.-P. Wald and J. Peinke, (2003) Bound.-Layer
Meteorol. 108, 163–173
2. E. Anahua et al. (2004) Proceedings of EWEC conference, London, England
3. H. Risken, (1983) The Fokker-Plank Equation, Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New
York, 1983
4. R. Friedrich, S. Siegert, J. Peinke, St. Lueck, M. Siefert, M. Lindemann,
J. Raethjen, G. Deuschl and G. Pfister, (2000) Phys. Lett. A 271, 217–222
5. Tjareborg Wind Turbine Data (1992). Database on Wind Characteristic,
www.winddata.com, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
6. A. Rauh and J. Peinke, (2003) J. Wind Eng. Aerodyn. 92, 159–183