High performance computing to boost UK wind generation

The two-year High Performance Computing for Wind Energy’ (HPCWE) project, which will be focused on wind power in both the European and Brazilian energy markets, involves 12 partners from across Europe and Brazil with expertise in HPC hardware, wind energy, numerical methods, software development and industrial applications.

The application of HPC is increasingly seen as vital to fully exploiting the potential of wind energy and the project will explore areas such as the use of HPC for turbine simulations, accurate integration of meso- and micro-scale simulations, and optimisation.

“At almost every stage in wind energy exploitation ranging from wind turbine design, wind resource assessment and power prediction to wind farm layout and operations, the application of HPC is a must,” explained project lead, Dr Xuerui Mao, from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham.

The consortium will develop novel algorithms, implement them in state-of-the-art codes and test the codes in academic and industrial cases to benefit the wind energy industry and research in both Europe and Brazil.