WIFA (Wind Farm API)

WIFA is an open-source multi-fidelity wind farm simulation framework that provides a unified interface to multiple flow modeling tools.

Features

• Multi-fidelity support: Engineering wake models (PyWake, foxes), atmospheric perturbation model (wayve), and CFD (code_saturne)
• Unified interface: Same input format works with all tools via WindIO schema
• CLI and Python API: Run simulations from command line or integrate into workflows
• Flexible inputs: Time series, Weibull wind roses, turbine-specific conditions
• Comprehensive outputs: Turbine power, AEP, flow fields in NetCDF format

Supported Tools

Tool	Type	Speed	Use Case
PyWake	Engineering wake model	Fast	AEP estimation, layout optimization
foxes	Engineering wake model	Fast	Large farms, long time series
wayve	Atmospheric perturbation model	Medium	Gravity waves, farm blockage
code_saturne	CFD (RANS)	Slow (HPC)	Detailed flow analysis

Quick Start

Installation

We recommend using uv for fast, reliable Python environment management:

# Install uv (if not already installed)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Create environment and install WIFA
uv venv --python 3.11
source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install wifa

Or with pip:

pip install wifa

Run a Simulation

# Using CLI
wifa examples/cases/windio_4turbines/wind_energy_system/system.yaml

# Tool-specific
wifa_foxes system.yaml
wifa_pywake system.yaml

Python API

from wifa.main_api import run_api

# Run simulation (tool selected from YAML)
run_api("path/to/system.yaml")

# Or use tool-specific API
from wifa.foxes_api import run_foxes
results = run_foxes("system.yaml", engine="process", n_procs=4)

Input Format

WIFA uses WindIO-formatted YAML files:

# system.yaml
name: My Wind Farm Study
site: !include ../site/site.yaml
wind_farm: !include ../farm/farm.yaml
attributes:
  flow_model:
    name: foxes  # or pywake, wayve, codesaturne
  analysis: !include analysis.yaml
  model_outputs_specification:
    output_folder: "results"
    turbine_outputs:
      turbine_nc_filename: 'turbine_data.nc'

See the documentation for complete schema details.

Examples

The examples/cases/ directory contains ready-to-run cases:

• windio_4turbines - Basic 4-turbine example
• simple_wind_rose - Weibull wind rose input
• heterogeneous_wind_rose_at_turbines - Per-turbine wind conditions
• timeseries_with_operating_flag - Turbine availability modeling
• windio_4turbines_ABL - Atmospheric boundary layer case
• And more...

Architecture

Documentation

Full documentation: https://euflow.github.io/WIFA/

• Getting Started
• Installation Guide
• Examples
• API Reference
• Troubleshooting

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Set up development environment:

   uv venv --python 3.11
   source .venv/bin/activate
   uv pip install -e ".[dev,test]"

4. Make your changes
5. Run tests: pytest tests/
6. Submit a pull request

Citation

If you use WIFA in your research, please cite:

@software{wifa2024,
  title = {WIFA: Wind Farm API},
  author = {EU-FLOW Consortium},
  year = {2024},
  url = {https://github.com/EUFLOW/WIFA}
}

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Acknowledgments

WIFA is developed within the EU-FLOW project. The embedded tools are developed by:

• PyWake: DTU Wind Energy
• foxes: Fraunhofer IWES
• wayve: KU Leuven
• code_saturne: EDF