Guiding Wind Farm Optimization with Machine Learning

Wind farm micro-siting is a complex process that requires multidisciplinary analysis and optimization. The problem consists not only of positioning the wind turbines in the locations within the site that have the most wind energy potential, but also it has to minimize wake interference between turbines. This means that usually the sum of the expected isolated turbines is less than the actual performance. Additionally, cost of turbine installation varies with the terrain and there is significant cost of road and collection system installation. Additionally, wind farms are increasingly large and complex (constraint wise) making inefficient optimization algorithms impractical. All these different parameters add up to the complexity of micro-siting wind farms, however, the performance of the wind farm will largely depend on it.