Solving the Turbine Positioning Problem for Large Offshore Wind Farms by Simulated Annealing

The current paper is concerned with determining the optimal layout of the turbines inside large offshore wind farms by means of an optimization algorithm. We call this the Turbine Positioning Problem. To achieve this goal a simulated annealing algorithm has been devised, where three types of local search operations are performed recursively until the system converges. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated on a suite of real life test cases, including Horns Rev offshore wind farm. The results are verified using a commercial wind resource software indicating that this method represents an effective strategy for the wind turbine positioning problem. The findings enable the comparison of the optimized and the grid layouts and the study of the wake differences between these configurations. It is seen that for very large offshore wind farms the difference in wake losses is negligible while, as the wind farm's size reduces, the differences start becoming significant. A sensitivity analysis is also performed showing that greater density of turbines in the perimeter of the optimized wind farm reduces the wake losses even if the wind climate changes.