What is wake steering control in wind farms and how does it work?

Wake steering intentionally misaligns upstream turbines to deflect their wakes away from downstream turbines. By yawing (rotating) turbines off the wind direction, the wake shifts laterally. While upstream turbine loses power (yaw misalignment), downstream turbines gain more from reduced wake effects. Net farm production increases 1-4%. Implementation requires: accurate wake models (Gaussian, curl-model for steering), real-time wind direction estimation, coordinated control across turbines, and balancing gains against added yaw bearing loads. Closed-loop approaches use downstream turbine measurements for feedback. Active research area with commercial deployments beginning.