Exploring key factors influencing optimal farm design using mixed-discrete particle Swarm optimization

The planning of a wind farm, which minimizes the project costs and maximizes the power generation capacity, presents significant challenges to today's wind energy industry. An optimal wind farm planning strategy that accounts for the key factors (that can be designed) influencing the net power generation offers a powerful solution to these daunting challenges. This paper explores the influences of (i) the number of turbines, (ii) the farm size, and (iii) the use of a combination of turbines with differing rotor diameters, on the optimal power generated by a wind farm. We use a recently developed method of arranging turbines in a wind farm (the Unrestricted Wind Farm Layout Optimization (UWFLO)) to maximize the farm efficiency. Response surface based cost models are used to estimate the cost of the wind farm as a function of the the turbine rotor diameters and number of tur- bines. Optimization is performed using a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm. A robust mixed-discrete version of the PSO algorithm is implemented to appropriately account for the discrete choice of feasible rotor diameters. The use of an optimal combi- nation of turbines with differing rotor diameters was observed to significantly improve the net power generation. Exploration of the influences of (i) the number of turbines, and (ii) the farm size, on the cost per KW of power produced, provided interesting observations.