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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
Wind energy production is inherently variable due to the turbulent nature of atmospheric winds, posing challenges for grid stability and integration. Understanding the statistical properties of wind power fluctuations is important for improving renewable energy reliability. Previous studies have shown that aggregated wind power from multiple turbines exhibits persistent and intermittent fluctuations, linked to turbulence. In this talk, I report an analysis of wind power fluctuations from an 80-turbine farm spanning 20 km, using data collected at 10-minute intervals over a duration of five years. We find that wind power exhibits universal, collective, and nonlinear correlations that contribute to excess persistence and intermittency in aggregated production. A space-time correlation analysis reveals a transition from local decoherence to large-scale turbulence-driven scaling, while a bivariate analysis of power jumps uncovers nonlinear dependencies between turbine outputs. These effects lead to stronger intermittency in total farm output than expected from simple averaging, challenging conventional assumptions about power smoothing. These findings underscore the importance of nonlinear correlations already known to exist in power generation dynamics. By better characterizing these fluctuations, it is hoped that the results can inform strategies for grid management, storage optimization, and wind farm design.
This work was performed with Dr. Samy Lakhal, JSPS Fellow at OIST and Mr. James Sardonia, Exus Renewables North America.
Bio: Mahesh holds a Bachelors' in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Madras (1998), and MS Electrical Engineering (2002), MS Physics (2004) and PhD Physics (2006), all from the University of Pittsburgh. He undertook postdoctoral terms at the T-CNLS and MPA Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory (2006 - 2009) and the Applied Math. Lab., Harvard University (2009 - 2011). He was appointed Assistant Professor at OIST Graduate University, Japan in 2012 and was promoted to Associate Professor (2018) and Professor (2022). He holds visiting appointments with the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Italy (since 2018) and the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, India (since 2022). Mahesh's research interests lie in Experimental Nonlinear, Non-equilibrium, and Soft Matter Physics with minor contributions in theory and numerics. His group's research portfolio is organized along four overlapping themes: Statistical Physics of Renewable Energy, Quantitative Life Sciences, Hydrodynamics, and Amorphous Media.
Host: Avadh Saxena (T-4)