Otimização de layout e sistema coletor de parques eólicos offshore

Abstract

The integration of energy generation systems from renewable and alternative sources became possible with the advent of new technologies. Wind energy is one of the sources that has been showing significant growth over the past few years and with good prospects for the coming years. This growth is verified for onshore projects, when installed on the continent, or offshore, when installed on the ocean. The absence of obstacles, which provide better use of the wind farm, and less visual and noise pollution have led to a growing interest on the part of investors in the construction of offshore projects. The technologies used for the deployment of wind farms in offshore environments require a greater investment when compared to onshore technologies. This fact makes the planning stage even more necessary, in which the objective is to obtain a wind farm that extracts the maximum power and, at the same time, is economically viable, presenting a reduction in cabling costs and electrical losses. Jensen’s wake effect model was used to define the optimum positioning of the turbines (layout). The model determines the incident wind speed in a turbine that is located in regions that have interference due to the interaction between the wind and a turbine located upstream. The optimization of the collector system aimed to reduce electrical losses and costs with the acquisition of cables. Cable crossings, the occurrence of wind turbines very close to connections, the ampacity limits and the positioning of the offshore substation were considered as restrictions of the problem. PSO, GWO, Bat Algorithm (BA) and a modified version of BA were the techniques used to solve both problems. The results obtained showed that the modifications implemented on BA make the technique perform better in obtaining solutions to these problems. In addition, the results demonstrated that all techniques were effective in obtaining viable solutions according to the objectives of each simulation. Thus, the techniques are great strategies for solving problems of this nature and assist decision making in the planning stage of wind farms.