Layout optimization for offshore wind farms considering both fatigue damage and power generation

Abstract

Fatigue damage is a crucial factor affecting the lifespan and reliability of wind turbines. However, this factor is seldom considered in the phase of wind farm layout optimization (WFLO). This oversight can lead to increased operating and maintenance costs, especially for offshore wind farms. To fill this technical gap, a multi-objective WFLO framework considering both fatigue damage and power generation is proposed. Via analytical wake models of wind speed and turbulence, the fatigue damage of each turbine can be rapidly evaluated accounting for both power production and wake turbulence. Typically, the Horns Rev wind farm is taken as a benchmark, and two indicators of fatigue damage, the maximum (F_max) and mean (F_mean) fatigue damage of all turbines, are considered in WFLO, respectively. The optimized layouts can achieve an increase in total power generation of over 2 % compared to the original layout, while reducing fatigue damage by about 1 %. Moreover, compared to single-objective WFLO focused solely on power generation, the multi-objective approach achieves a reduction of about 3.2 % in F_max, while maintaining a comparable power output level. Further investigation shows that the indicator of F_max in WFLO performs better to effectively reduce and balance the fatigue damage of all turbines.