A review of offshore wind farm layout optimization and electrical system design methods

There is more wind with less turbulence offshore compared with an onshore case, which drives the development of the offshore wind farm worldwide. Since a huge amount of money is required for constructing an offshore wind farm, many types of research have been done on the optimization of the offshore wind farm with the purpose of either minimizing the cost of energy or maximizing the total energy production. There are several factors that have an impact on the performance of the wind farm, mainly energy production of wind farm which is highly decided by the wind condition of construction area and micro-siting of wind turbines (WTs), as well as initial investment which is influenced by both the placement of WTs and the electrical system design, especially the scheme of cable connection layout. In this paper, a review of the state-of-art researches related to the wind farm layout optimization as well as electrical system design including cable connection scheme optimization is presented. The most significant factors that should be considered in the offshore wind farm optimization work is highlighted after reviewing the latest works, and the future needs have been specified.