AWAKEN: American WAKE experimeNt

Project Overview

The American WAKE experimeNt (AWAKEN) is a comprehensive wind energy field campaign combining advanced atmospheric sensing, multi-scale wake measurements, and coordinated validation efforts across 12+ national laboratories, universities, and industry partners. As Co-Investigator and Lead Coordinator, I directed this $28M+ DOE-funded effort to improve understanding of wind plant wake dynamics and atmospheric physics.

My Role & Contributions

• Campaign Coordination: Directed deployment logistics, data management protocols, and cross-institutional collaboration for 18-month intensive measurement campaign at two operating wind plants in Oklahoma
• Measurement Strategy: Architected multi-scale sensing network combining ground-based lidars, profiling systems, acoustic tomography, and in-situ tower measurements to capture wake evolution from rotor scale to wind plant scale
• Data Infrastructure: Led development of 200+ TB validation-quality dataset with standardized formatting, quality control procedures, and open-access distribution framework
• Scientific Leadership: Coordinated interdisciplinary research teams investigating wake meandering, atmospheric stability effects, turbine-wake-atmosphere interactions, and model validation

Technical Innovations

AWAKEN deployed unprecedented sensing capabilities:

• 40+ scanning Doppler lidars capturing three-dimensional wake structure
• Acoustic tomography arrays reconstructing volumetric wind and temperature fields
• Instrumented meteorological towers with high-frequency turbulence measurements
• Coordinated scanning strategies enabling simultaneous multi-platform observations

Impact

AWAKEN’s datasets are being used internationally for wind energy model validation, supporting:

• Wake model development and validation across academic, national lab, and industry communities
• Uncertainty quantification frameworks for wind plant performance prediction
• Advanced control strategy development and testing
• Weather and wake forecasting system improvements

The campaign’s open-data approach has enabled 50+ institutions to use AWAKEN measurements in computational model validation, machine learning algorithm development, and fundamental turbulence research.

Funding & Partnerships

• Funding: $28M+ from DOE Wind Energy Technologies Office
• Duration: 2019-2024 (planning, execution, analysis)
• Partners: NREL, Sandia National Laboratories, PNNL, University of Colorado Boulder, Texas Tech University, NOAA, DTU Wind Energy, plus industry collaborators including NextEra Energy

Selected Publications

See Publications page for AWAKEN-related research outputs.

See the Project Page for datasets and more information!