A novel adaptive genetic algorithm for wind farm layout optimization

Abstract

In this paper we propose an adaptive genetic algorithm (AGA) to optimize wind farm layout in order to achieve a highest aggregate wind power conversion efficiency with the presence of wake effect impacts. Instead of using random “crossover” in each iteration as in conventional GA, our proposed adaptive algorithm introduces novel relocation of “bad” turbines so that turbines experiencing worst wake effect impacts in a layout will be relocated to some new and more efficient positions. Therefore each iteration of the AGA can more effectively improve the aggregate wind power conversion efficiency and greatly accelerate the algorithm convergence. We experiment the proposed AGA and compare its performance with conventional GA based on a number of scenarios such as multi-directional wind distribution, offshore and inland wind distribution, with sparse and crowded farm settings. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of the proposed AGA algorithm which is able to locate an optimal layout at a much faster convergence speed and achieve a higher aggregate wind power output from a farm.