3. Wind Turbine Wake Redirection via External Vanes

The aerodynamic interactions of wind turbines are a wind farm’s most significant source of energy loss. Every wind turbine creates a low-speed, highly turbulent, plume-like airflow called a “wake.” To minimize the said losses, one needs to reduce the overall exposure to upstream turbines’ wakes. One can achieve this goal by optimizing the farm’s layout and actively controlling the parameters that can either steer or weaken the wake, such as yaw or pitch angles. Both practices, i.e., layout optimization and active yaw control, are still insufficient, leaving the wind farms as one of the least power-dense forms of plants with a power density of 1–2 W/m². In this article, we propose the application of external vanes to steer the wake from downstream turbines in real time. While acknowledging that implementing this strategy with a current technology readiness level of 1 is not easy, this research only serves as a preliminary proof of concept demonstrating this idea’s effectiveness. The study utilized large-eddy simulations and an inline, three-turbine configuration. It revealed that a sizeable external vane between the front- and the second-row turbines increased the production of the second and third turbines by approximately 45% and 42%, respectively, which is significant compared to all other studied active wake control strategies.