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Mathematical Optimization and Algorithms for Offshore Wind Farm Design: An Overview

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Abstract

Wind energy is a fast evolving field that has attracted a lot of attention and investments in the last decades. Being an increasingly competitive market, it is very important to minimize establishment costs and increase production profits already at the design phase of new wind parks. This paper is based on many years of collaboration with Vattenfall, a leading wind energy developer and wind power operator, and aims at giving an overview of the experience of using Mathematical Optimization in the field. The paper illustrates some of the practical needs defined by energy companies, showing how optimization can help the designers to increase production and reduce costs in the design of offshore parks. In particular, the study gives an overview of the individual phases of designing an offshore wind farm, and some of the optimization problems involved. Finally it goes in depth with three of the most important optimization tasks: turbine location, electrical cable routing and foundation optimization. The paper is concluded with a discussion of future challenges.

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Acknowledgements

The work of the first author was carried out as an industrial PhD project, supported by Innovation Fund Denmark and Vattenfall BA Wind, in collaboration with DTU Management. We would like to thank our industrial partner, and in the specific Jesper Runge Kristoffersen, Iulian Vranceanu, Thomas Hjort and Kenneth Skaug who helped us in defining the cable routing and wind park design constraints; and Per Christian Hyldahl who helped defining jacket foundation problem and testing our model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vattenfall BA Wind, Jupitervej 6, 6000, Kolding, Denmark

    Martina Fischetti

  2. DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Produktionstorvet 424, 2800, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    David Pisinger

Authors
  1. Martina Fischetti
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  2. David Pisinger
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Correspondence to David Pisinger.

Additional information

Accepted after one revision by Prof. Dr. Suhl.

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Fischetti, M., Pisinger, D. Mathematical Optimization and Algorithms for Offshore Wind Farm Design: An Overview. Bus Inf Syst Eng 61, 469–485 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-018-0538-0

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