Turbine Influenced Flow Reconstruction Across Multiple ABL States using Diffusion Models

Abstract

As the energy transition accelerates, improving wind energy efficiency and forecasting becomes increasingly critical. One key challenge lies in reconstructing high-fidelity atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) flow fields from sparse measurements, especially in regions influenced by wind turbines. This thesis explores the use of Latent Diffusion Models (LDMs) to reconstruct physically plausible ABL flow fields from limited spatial data. Where previous work focused on homogeneous, neutral ABL states, this research extends the methodology to more diverse and realistic conditions by including both stable and neutral boundary layers with embedded wind farms. A conditional diffusion model is trained in the latent space of an autoencoder (AE), using both local measurements and global atmospheric labels. The model is evaluated using statistical, physical, and spectral metrics, and its ability to generalize across multiple ABL regimes is analyzed. Results show that the model can generate realistic reconstructions from extremely sparse inputs, including turbine wake structures, and can potentially serve as a tool for initializing Large Eddy Simulations (LES). These findings mark an important step toward integrating generative models into operational wind forecasting and control systems.