Electrical layout design is a key element in offshore wind farm (OWF) planning, with a critical impact on both plant cost and reliability. Offshore Windfarm Layout optimizer (OWL) has been developed to efficiently find optimal electrical layouts in affordable computation times.

• It considers a flexible design for the collector system, while other available tools restrict their solution to pre-determined layouts (e.g. radial).
• Stochastic wind inputs and component failures are considered in an efficient manner.
• The tool incorporates the possibility of HVDC connection.
• Losses are included in the calculation.

The model is based on Mixed-Integer Programming solved with Benders’ decomposition. Several innovative features of the model have been described in academic publications:

• S. Lumbreras, A. Ramos, "Optimal design of the electrical layout of an offshore wind farm applying decomposition strategies". IEEE Transactions on Power Systems. vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 1434-1441, May 2013.
• S. Lumbreras, A. Ramos, S. Cerisola, "A progressive contingency incorporation approach for stochastic optimization problems". IEEE Transactions on Power Systems. vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 1452-1460, May 2013.

Other publications of the authors related to OWF design:

• S. Lumbreras, A. Ramos, P. Sánchez, "Offshore wind farm electrical design using a hybrid of ordinal optimization and mixed-integer programming". Wind Energy. vol. 18, no. 12, pp. 2241-2258, December 2015. [Online: October 2014]
• S. Lumbreras, A. Ramos, "Offshore wind farm electrical design: a review". Wind Energy. vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 459-473, April 2013.

Contact:

Sara Lumbreras (slumbreras@comillas.edu)

Andrés Ramos (aramos@comillas.edu)