Wind Power Resource Assessment in Complex Terrain: Villonaco Case-study Using Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis

This paper describes a complex terrain wind farm case study in the Ecuadorian Andes. The Windfarm Villonaco is located in southern Ecuador, 640km of Quito, 2700 m a.s.l. with 16.5 MW power output. The objective is to compare actual power production from an existing wind farm with power production predicted by Meteodyn WT, which is a CFD tool based on a nonlinear flow model. The results of this work show that the calculation of the annual energy production of the Villonaco Wind Farm using Meteodyn WT is equal to 69.0 GWh / year, with a capacity factor of 53%.