Optimal Micro-Siting of Weathervaning Floating Wind Turbines

Javier Serrano González, Manuel Burgos Payán, Jesús Manuel Riquelme Santos and Ángel Gaspar González Rodríguez
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Javier Serrano González: Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Seville, 41092 Seville, Spain
Manuel Burgos Payán: Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Seville, 41092 Seville, Spain
Jesús Manuel Riquelme Santos: Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Seville, 41092 Seville, Spain
Ángel Gaspar González Rodríguez: Department of Electronic Engineering, Telecommunications and Automation, University of Jaen, 23071 Jaen, Spain

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 4, 1-19

Abstract: This paper presents a novel tool for optimizing floating offshore wind farms based on weathervaning turbines. This solution is grounded on the ability of the assembly (wind turbine plus floater) to self-orientate into the wind direction, as this concept is allowed to freely pivot on a single point. This is a passive yaw potential solution for floating wind farms currently in the demonstration phase. A genetic algorithm is proposed for optimizing the levelised cost of energy by determining the geographical coordinates of the pivot points (i.e., the position over which the assembly can rotate to self-orient to the incoming wind direction). A tailored evaluation module is proposed to take into account the weathervaning motion around the pivot point depending on the incoming wind direction. The results obtained show the suitability of the proposed method to solve the addressed problem under realistic conditions. Additionally, the influence of the feasible region defined by the plot and the maximum area occupied on floating offshore wind farm design are also analysed in the proposed test cases. These deployable area constraints are of great importance for the viability of this technology, as it requires more space than classical solutions anchored to a fixed point.

Keywords: floating offshore; micro-siting; offshore wind farm; optimal layout; passive yaw control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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