Methods and systems for thrust-based turbine wake control

A wind turbine optimization method comprising:

• calibrating a controller wherein calibrating the controller comprises directly measuring wake trajectory deviations by measuring velocity time-series signal spectral energy amplitude changes at periods equivalent to one or more rotations obtained from experiments on models in wind tunnels;
• setting a desired location range of a wind wake with a controller;
• determining an error signal in order to minimize the error signal;
• adjusting a speed of a rotor associated with a wind turbine according to the error signal;
• and
• confining a real-time position of the wind wake to the desired location range of the wind wake by minimizing the error signal.

An apparatus for wind turbine optimization comprising:

• a wind turbine;
• a processor;
• and
• a computer-usable medium embodying computer code, said computer-usable medium being coupled to said processor, said computer code comprising non-transitory instruction media executable by said processor configured for:
• calibrating a controller with data obtained from experiments on models in wind tunnels the data comprising directly measured wake trajectory deviations collected by measuring velocity time-series signal spectral energy amplitude changes at periods equivalent to one or more rotations;
• setting a desired location range of a wind wake with the controller;
• determining an error signal;
• adjusting a speed of a rotor associated with the wind turbine according to the error signal in order to minimize the error signal;
• and
• confining a real-time position of the wind wake to the desired location range of the wind wake by minimizing the error signal.