Wind Turbine Production losses in Cold Climate : case study of ten wind farms in Sweden

As wind power expands rapidly worldwide, it is becoming more common to build wind farms in alpine locations where the wind resources often are good and conflicting interests are few. This is evident in Sweden where a substantial portion of the large wind parks planned are to be built in cold climate locations. The fact that icing of turbine blades and sensors can severely impact the production raises the question how large the losses are. In this thesis 10 wind parks comprising 45 turbines, well dispersed throughout Sweden are investigated. Daily production figures are compared to wind data from the MERRA reanalysis data-set in order to see if it is possible to determine the level of losses during the winter period caused by cold climate. A method is suggested where a relationship between daily production and daily average wind speed is established using representative summer days. This relationship is then used to calculate an expected production for the winter period. Losses are concluded as the difference between expected and actual production. The method did not produce a consistent and reliable result for the sites investigated. However, the method captures the overall trend with higher losses in the north of Sweden compared to the sites in the south where little or no icing is likely. At the sites where icing is expected, losses in the range of 10 to 20% of the annual production were calculated