Optimization of Wind Farm Layout

This paper presents a method for determination of optimum positions of single wind turbines within the wind farms installed on arbitrary configured terrains, in order to achieve their maximum production effectiveness. This method is based on use of the genetic algorithm as optimization technique. The wind turbine aerodynamic calculation is unsteady, based on the blade modeled as a vortex lattice and a free-wake type airflow behind the blade. Optimization method is developed for two different fitness functions. Both functions use the total energy obtained from the farm as one of the key variables. The second also involves the total investments in a single wind turbine, so the optimization process can also include the total number of turbines as an additional variable. The method has been tested on several different terrain configurations, with special attention paid to the overall algorithm performance improvements by selecting certain genetic algorithm parameters.