Wind energy software

Several specialized wind energy software applications have been developed to aid in the development of wind farms.

Wind Turbine Design

Some specialized software applications are used to design wind turbines. These are used primarily by wind turbine manufacturers and the consultants who advise them.

The GH Bladed software package is the industry standard for wind turbine and component manufacturers worldwide. GH Bladed has been validated by Germanischer Lloyd for the calculation of wind turbine loads for design and certification.Bold text""'Ita^{Superscript Small Texttext}lic text""'Small Text

Wind Data Analysis

Wind data analysis software assist the user in removing measurement errors from wind data sets and perform specialized statistical analysis. Popular applications are Windographer and WindRose.

Wind Flow Modeling

Wind flow modeling software aims to predict important characteristics of the wind resource at locations where measurements are not available. The most commonly used such software application is WAsP, created at Risø National Laboratory in Denmark. WAsP uses a potential flow model to predict how wind flows over the terrain at a site. WindSim is a similar application that uses CFD calculations instead, which are potentially more accurate.

Wind Farm Modeling

Wind farm modeling software aims to simulate the behavior of a proposed or existing wind farm, most importantly to calculate its energy production. The user can usually input wind data, height and roughness contour lines, wind turbine specifications, background maps, and define objects that represent environmental restrictions. This information is then used to design a wind farm that maximizes energy production while taking restrictions and construction issues into account. There are four wind farm modeling software applications available: OpenWIND, WindPRO, WindFarmer, and WindFarm.