Abstract
Motivated by the need to develop reference wind energy systems for optimisation and technology assessment studies, the International Energy Agency Wind Task 37 on Wind Energy Systems Engineering is developing a reference offshore wind power plant at the Dutch offshore wind energy areas Borssele III and IV. This paper presents a comparison between two approaches for developing the preliminary design of an offshore wind plant turbine layout, electrical collection system, and support structures. The first is a sequential approach, where components of the wind farm are optimised sequentially, each with its own objective function, thus neglecting potential interactions between them. The second approach uses Multidisciplinary Design Analysis and Optimisation (MDAO), where all components are jointly optimised with the overall system levelised cost of energy (LCOE) as a global objective function. Studying the cases of regular and irregular layouts, the integrated approach always shows a greater improvement in the LCOE of the final design compared to the design resulting from the traditional sequential approach. The most significant trade-off exploited by the MDAO approach used in this study is between losses in energy production due to turbine wake effects and the costs of electrical cable infrastructure.
Highlights
Offshore wind farms are complex systems composed of many components that are governed by multiple phenomena and disciplines that interact with one another [1]
The annual energy production (AEP) and costs of the electrical collection system and support structures are shown for all designs
Since the baseline irregular layout was made with a greedy algorithm that maximises spacing and has a high AEP and high electrical cable costs, AEP has the least potential to contribute to the reduction of the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) of the baseline, while the electrical infrastructure has the greatest LCOE reduction potential
Summary
Offshore wind farms are complex systems composed of many components that are governed by multiple phenomena and disciplines that interact with one another [1]. Compounding this complexity is the large number of industry stakeholders involved—each responsible for different components of the system. One common example of a missed opportunity for reducing the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) is the optimisation of the layout of a wind plant without robust consideration of its impact on balance-of-system costs—including the electrical collection system or the cost of the support structure with varying water depths, among others.
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