Global Wind Day 2025: New UCD tool to optimise wind farm design

_{Pictured: Horns Rev 2 offshore wind farm, Denmark, with low-hanging fog visualising turbine wakes}

Global Wind Day is next Sunday so we want to tell you about the UCD Sustainability funded Omega project, which aims to make computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of wind turbines easier, faster, cheaper and more accessible. 

For context, wind farms produce more than a third of our electricity and Ireland aims to source 80% of its power from renewables by 2030, with wind energy - both onshore and offshore - expected to be the primary contributor. 

But did you know that the 'wake' from a wind turbine - the turbulent, slower-moving airflow generated behind its rotor - can reduce wind speed and energy efficiency for downstream turbines?

“Researchers have grappled with how to best pack turbines into a space to balance energy extraction per hectare with the need to avoid wake losses,” says Omega project lead, (opens in a new window)Dr Kevin Nolan, UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.

“More recently there is the concept of wake steering where you turn a turbine slightly so that the overall farm is producing more energy even if individual turbines are not aligned properly into the flow. CFD can help us understand how to control wakes with steering for all kinds of scenarios. You can see how building an accurate CFD model of a wind farm is important.”

This is where Omega comes in. Designed to simplify the use of OpenFOAM - one of the world’s most widely used open-source CFD tools - it takes care of complex set-up steps in wind turbine design, so you can start running simulations without needing to configure everything manually or using complex code.

“The Omega project has developed a tool that allows high fidelity simulations of wind turbines be created by non-experts while also paving a way for high fidelity wind farm simulations. So instead of spending days and weeks setting up a simulation - it can really take that long - you can do it in minutes with this tool and iterate on it instantly. This will lead to faster and more accurate simulations, which is key to maximising the efficiency of wind farms.”