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Advanced Wind Energy Systems: Comprehensive Insights into Analysis, Design, Control, and Optimization—2nd Edition

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A3: Wind, Wave and Tidal Energy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 5 November 2026 | Viewed by 1949

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
The Energy Production and Infrastructure Center, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 9201 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA
Interests: renewable energy systems; design, operation, manufacturing, and maintenance of wind energy systems; adaptive wind turbine blades; energy production and mitigate loads optimization; societal and environmental phenomena; microgrids; technical, societal, and economic aspects of rural electrification
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In this era of advanced wind energy systems, the dominant presence of wind turbines on our landscapes signifies more than just a shift towards cleaner energy. They stand as beacons of modern advancements in design, control, analysis, and optimization. This progression is not limited to the vast stretches of traditional onshore farms but also spans to offshore behemoths, urbanized wind solutions, and elevated wind energy mechanisms. The integration of sophisticated aerodynamic models, innovative design strategies, and refined control mechanisms has culminated in wind turbines that boast unparalleled efficiency, tenacity, and versatility. Alongside this, the diversification of their deployment across varying terrains and conditions has intensified research on their monitoring, longevity, and fault tolerance, leading to the inception of turbines that are increasingly intelligent and durable.

With this Special Issue, we aim to curate and distribute the most contemporary breakthroughs concerning the design, optimization, application, control, and health monitoring of wind energy systems.

Areas that are particularly compelling for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • High-fidelity, efficient aerodynamic models for wind turbines;
  • Socioeconomic considerations in wind energy deployment and management;
  • AI and machine learning in wind turbine design and predictive control;
  • Digital twins for real-time turbine performance monitoring;
  • Ecodesign principles for sustainable wind turbine lifecycle;
  • Additive manufacturing for turbine component enhancement;
  • Topology optimization for peak turbine efficiency;
  • Integrated design approaches emphasizing total turbine optimization;
  • IoT in turbine design for real-time data and adaptive operation;
  • Cloud-based tools for turbine modeling and optimization.

Your insights, research, and innovations in these domains would greatly enrich this collaborative endeavor. Collectively, we can continue to propel wind energy into the zenith of its potential.

Dr. John Hall
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • wind energy
  • wind turbines
  • aerodynamic
  • onshore and offshore wind farms
  • AI and machine learning
  • modeling and optimization

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

47 pages, 1879 KB  
Review
Advancing Offshore Wind Capacity Through Turbine Size Scaling
by Paweł Martynowicz, Piotr Ślimak and Desta Kalbessa Kumsa
Energies 2026, 19(7), 1625; https://doi.org/10.3390/en19071625 - 25 Mar 2026
Viewed by 1649
Abstract
The upscaling of turbines in the offshore wind industry has been unprecedented, as compared to 5–6 MW rated turbines 10 years ago. A typical 20–26 MW rated turbine in modern commercial applications (MingYang MySE 18.X-20 MW installed in 2025 and 26 MW prototype [...] Read more.
The upscaling of turbines in the offshore wind industry has been unprecedented, as compared to 5–6 MW rated turbines 10 years ago. A typical 20–26 MW rated turbine in modern commercial applications (MingYang MySE 18.X-20 MW installed in 2025 and 26 MW prototype by Dongfang Electric tested in 2025) has been demonstrated. This scaling has been made possible by increasing rotor diameters (>250 m) and hub heights (>150–180 m) to achieve capacity factors of up to 55–65%, annual energy generation of more than 80 GWh/turbine, and significant decreases in levelised cost of energy (LCOE) to current values of up to 63–65 USD 2023/MWh globally averaged in 2023 (with minor variability in 2024 due to market changes and new regional areas). The paper analyses turbine upscaling over three levels of hierarchy, including turbine scale—rated capacity and physical aspect, project scale—multi-gigawatts of farms, and market scale—the global pipeline > 1500 GW level, and combines techno-economic evaluation, structural evaluation of loads, and infrastructure needs assessment. The upscaling has the advantage of reducing the number of turbines dramatically (e.g., 500 to 67 turbines in a 1 GW farm, as turbine size is increased to 15 MW) and balancing-of-plant (BoP) CAPEX (turbine-to-turbine foundations and cables) by some 20 to 30 percent per unit of capacity, and serial production learning rates of between 15 and 18% per doubling of capacity. But the problems that come with the increase in ultra-large designs are nonlinear increments in mass and load (i.e., blade-root and tower-bending moments), logistical constraints (blades > 120 m, nacelle up to 800–1000 tonnes demanding special vessels and ports), supply-chain issues (rare-earth materials, vessel shortages increase day rates by 30–50%), and technology limitations (aeroelastic compounded by numerical differences between reference 5 MW, 10 MW, and 15 MW models), it becomes evident that there is a significant increase in deflections of the tower and blades and platform surge/pitch responses with continued increases in power levels, but without a correspondingly mature infrastructure. The regional differences (mature ports of Europe vs. U.S. Jones Act restrictions vs. scale-up of vessels/manufacturing in China) lead to the necessity of optimisation depending on the context. The analysis concludes that, to the extent of mature markets with adapted logistics, continuous upscaling is an effective business strategy and can result in 5 to 12 percent further reductions in LCOE, but beyond that point, gains become marginal or even negative, as risks and costs increase. The competitiveness of the future depends on multi-scale/multi-market-based approaches—modular-based families of turbines, programmatic standardisation, vibration control innovations, and industry coordination towards supply-chain alignment and standards. Its major strength is that it transcends mere size–cost relationships and shows how nonlinear structural processes, aero-hydro-servo-elastic interactions, and bottlenecks in logistical systems are becoming more determinant of the efficiency of ultra-large turbines. The study demonstrates that upscaling turbines has LCOE benefits through the support of associated improvements in installation facility, supply-chain preparedness, and structural vibration control potential, based on the comparisons of quantitative loads, techno-economic scaling trends, and regional market differentiation. Full article
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