New FLORIS Release Significantly Increases Computation Speeds

A Major Redesign of the Open-Source Optimization Tool Could Help Increase Productivity and Profits at Wind Energy Facilities

April 25, 2022 | Contact media relations

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) Wind Energy Controls Research Team announced the release of Version 3.0 of the FLOw Redirection and Induction in Steady State (FLORIS) wind farm controls software. FLORIS optimizes flow control strategies so that existing wind energy facilities can improve productivity and future projects can maximize profits.

“This version of the open-source software represents a major redesign, rewrite, and enhancement,” said Paul Fleming, NREL researcher and principal investigator. “It’s much faster—100 times faster than Version 2.1 and 30 times faster than Version 2.4. It’s also more accurate and supports more varied computations.”

Three bars on a graph showing shrinking computation time for FLORIS V2.1, V2.4 and V3.0, respectively. Text on the bar labeled FLORIS V3.0 note that it is "30X Faster than v 2.4 and 100X Faster than v 2.1." — The new and improved FLORIS 3.0 enables users to consider wind power plant control strategies with much shorter computation times. *Graphic by Taylor Henry, NREL*

Some of the most significant improvements that are now available to academics, manufacturers, developers, and small businesses include:

Improved computation speeds for calculating wind farm annual energy production
Enhanced offshore wind farm models
Mixed-turbine-model capabilities
FLORIS-based Analysis for Supervisory Control (FLASC) companion repository.

A simplified representation of a FLORIS-based analysis for SCADA (FLASC), which includes a scatter plot and a wave-shaped line, measuring wind direction along the x-axis and energy ratio along the y-axis — Also new for users is the release of FLORIS-based Analysis for Supervisory Control and data acquisition (SCADA) data (FLASC), which includes FLORIS-to-SCADA data comparison. *Graphic by Taylor Henry, NREL*

The release of FLORIS Version 3.0 comes after a six-week beta-testing period, during which additional features were added and minor bugs were fixed—but there is more to come.

“Ongoing development of FLORIS continues,” Fleming said. “We’re planning several new features, including even greater computational speed, the ability to couple to hybrid plant models, continuous improvement to wake models, and modeling of axial-induction-based wind farm controllers.”

FLORIS was developed by NREL and Delft University of Technology with support from the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office. Funding was also provided by the National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium.

For more information, including installation instructions and a quick-start guide, visit the FLORIS web page. Learn more about wind energy research and tools at NREL, and subscribe to NREL's wind energy newsletter.