Abstract
The problem of optimally increasing the size of existing wind farms has not been investigated in the literature. In this paper, a proposed wind farm layout upgrade by adding different (in type and/or hub height) commercial turbines to an existing farm is introduced and optimized. Three proposed upgraded layouts are considered: internal grid, external grid, and external unstructured. The manufacturer’s power curve and a general representation for thrust coefficient are used in power and wake calculations, respectively. A simple field-based model is implemented and both offshore and onshore conditions are considered. A genetic algorithm is used for the optimization. The trade-off range between energy production and cost of energy is investigated by considering three objective functions, individually: (1) annual energy production; (2) cost of added energy; and (3) cost of total energy. The proposed upgraded layouts are determined for the Horns Rev 1 offshore wind farm. The results showed a wide range of suitable upgrade scenarios depending on the upgraded layout and the optimization objective. The farm energy production is increased by 190–336% with a corresponding increase in the total cost by 147–720%. The external upgrade offers more energy production but with much more cost. The unstructured layouts showed clear superiority over the grid ones by providing much lower cost of energy.
Highlights
Wind energy has become an increasingly competitive source of electricity, among renewable energy sources and compared with conventional fossil fuels [1]
The results showed that a decrease in the Levelized Production Cost by ~1% combined with an increase in the AEP with ~1% could be achieved by re-optimizing the farm layout
This paper considers the optimization of wind farm layout upgrade for the first time in the literature as an alternative to repowering a wind farm by replacing the turbines
Summary
Wind energy has become an increasingly competitive source of electricity, among renewable energy sources and compared with conventional fossil fuels [1]. The global cumulative installed wind capacity exceeded 539 GW by the end of 2017 [2]. Wind energy capacity is more than half the global renewable installed capacity (not including hydropower) [1], it shares more than half the growth [5]. Wind energy is the second highest growing renewable energy source (after solar photovoltaics) [1,5].
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