7This article explores an automated approach for the efficient placement of substations and 8 the design of an inter-array electrical collection network for an offshore wind farm through 9 the minimization of the cost. To accomplish this, the problem is represented as a number 10 of sub-problems that are solved in series using a combination of heuristic algorithms. The 11 overall problem is first solved by clustering the turbines to generate valid substation positions.
12From this, a navigational mesh pathifinding algorithm based on Delaunay triangulation is 13 applied to identify valid cable paths, which are then used in a mixed-inter linear programming 14 problem to solve for a constrained capacitated minimum spanning tree considering all realistic 15 constraints. The final tree that is produced represents the solution to the inter-array cable 16 results. This method is applied to a planned wind farm to illustrate the suitability of the 17 approach and the resulting layout that is generated.
Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs are estimated to account for 14%-30% of total Offshore Wind Farm (OWF) project lifecycle expenditure according to a range of studies. In this respect, identifying factors affecting operational costs and availability are vital for wind farm operators to achieve the most profitable decisions. Many OWFs are built in stages and the important factors may not be consistent for the different phases. To address this issue, three OWF case studies are defined to represent two phases and a complete project. An initial qualitative screening sensitivity analysis was conducted to identify the most important factors of O&M affecting operating cost and availability. The study concluded that the important factors for total O&M cost were access and repair costs along with failure rates for both minor and major repairs. For time-based availability, the important factors identified were those related to the length of time conducting the maintenance tasks, i.e. the operation duration and the working day length. It was found that the two stages had similar results, but these were different compared to the complete project. In this case, the results provide valuable information to OWF operators during the project development and decision making process
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.