A new research wind farm (‘WiValdi’ – Wind Validation Platform) is currently being set up in Northern Germany. An overview of the wind farm 'Wivaldi' is given including an outline of the control set-up that will allow safe and efficient testing of different wind turbine control algorithms. The design and underlying physics of a Simulink wind turbine model to be leveraged for Hardware-in-the-Loop testing of control algorithms prior to implementation on the wind farm is presented. A code2code comparison of the Simulink model with the widely used FAST (Fatigue, Aerodynamic, Structure, Turbulence) simulation environment, developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), is shown. Results from the Simulink simulation comparing a baseline PI controller with a model predictive controller (MPC) are discussed.