AWAKEN: The American WAKE experimeNt

The American WAKE experimeNt (AWAKEN) leverages the experience, instrumentation, and capabilities of multiple institutions to conduct the most comprehensive wind energy wake experiment to date.

Viewing Wind Farm Efficiency Losses With Eyes Wide Open

AWAKEN was an international, multi-institutional field campaign designed to answer the most pressing science questions about how individual wind turbines interact with one another and the atmosphere. AWAKEN has gathered observational data from wind farms to validate models and advance the industry's understanding of these interactions, which expands beyond complex aerodynamics.

One of the major causes of wind plant underperformance is energy loss caused by turbine-to-turbine wake interactions. And industry models (such as FLORIS) used to predict these losses have uncertainty levels of 20%–50%. AWAKEN aims to cut the uncertainty levels of current industry tools in half—or more—by producing data that will enable wind farm models to better predict future performance and wake impacts.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Wind Energy Technologies Office, AWAKEN aims to improve the efficiency of wind power plants. The specific objective of AWAKEN is to gather high-fidelity observations of wind turbines and power plants operating in representative atmospheric conditions and then use these data to advance the understanding of wind power plant physics.

Designing a Definitive Dataset

AWAKEN researchers chose a field campaign site that borders several wind farms in Oklahoma, between Ponca City and Enid, at which they measured wind-farm-atmosphere interactions. After equipment installation completed in 2022, researchers collected data until July 2025. Collaborative efforts to analyze and report the data through various publications and dissemination efforts will continue as part of the Ensuring Data Usage from the Rotor aerodynamics, aeroelastics, and wake (RAAW) and AWAKEN (ENDURA) project through 2027.

To map the details of air flow and turbulence around wind turbines, AWAKEN researchers used scanning radars, lasers, and aircraft—each providing unique and complex measurements. DOE's Wind Data Archive and Portal hosts the data, allowing the AWAKEN research team and worldwide collaborators access to information that could help them decrease annual energy production losses, validate and improve wind farm models, and optimize wind farm design.

Publications

Overview of Preparation for the American WAKE ExperimeNt (AWAKEN), Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (2024)

American WAKE experimeNt (AWAKEN) , Fact Sheet (2022)

American WAKE experimeNt (AWAKEN), NREL Technical Report (2020)

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