Climate change is mankind’s biggest challenge and scientists around the globe agree that civilization is pushing towards a breaking point. Renewable energy are alternatives that are capable to remove the need for fossil fuel. Wind power will play a vital role and has the possibility to confront the challenges that face the globe.

In order for wind power to reach its full potential constructors need to take into account the distance between each wind power turbine, as it can cause energy loss and generate less electricity into the system. These energy losses decrease the potential of wind power and thus also for renewable as a whole.

Energy losses that emerge within the space between wind power plants are named wake losses. Once the wind has passed the plant, a distance equal to seven rotor diameters is needed for the wind to regain its full force. By positioning the plants within the announced distance, the production of each plant decreases since downstream turbines are not able to generate a full effect.      

This Bachelor thesis in Energy Engineering aims to analyse these wake losses for the wind power plant Skäppentorp, which is situated in Mönsterås County. The nearby wind power plant Brotorp is affecting Skäppentorps production and the authors of this degree project chose to present the wake losses as a percentage. A third wind power plant named Idhult functioned as a reference. Idhult is of course not affected before the positioning of Brotorp but neither after it, therefore the plant was used to ensure that weak winds were not ascribed to Brotorp but are a result of a weak wind year. The Bachelor thesis covered thus three wind power plants, Skäppentorp which interacts and is affected by Brotorp and Idhult which served as reference. The wake losses were calculated in Microsoft Excel and set against the software windPRO to validate the programmed produced losses for the same plant.

Skäppentorp’s surrounding were divided into 12 sectors, where each sector covers an angle of 30 degrees. By doing so a full circle, 360 degrees, surrounding the plant was established. The wind speed and the production before respectively after Brotorp deployment was produced by using a nearby measuring post. Via an average production value for each sector, before and after Brotorp, a percentage wake loss was calculated. This was set against Idhult to sort away better respectively worse wind years. The period before covered the year 2012 until 2015 and the period after covered 2016 until 2018. 

The result from Microsoft Excel indicates that sector four and sector nine were subjected to the highest percentage of losses. The results from the software windPRO however indicated the highest loss in sector four. Three sectors obtained the same percentage loss as windPRO while remaining values came out dissimilar. The distinction between some of the sectors may be caused by the positioning of some of the Brotorp turbines, where some are located on the borderline between sectors. This implies that some turbines affect two sectors when calculated with Microsoft Excel, which it does not when simulated with windPRO.

The sum of all sections indicated that Brotorp turbines caused a wake loss of 3,8 %. This was compared to the simulation in windPRO which resulted in 5,7 %.