Optimizing the Layout of 1000 Wind Turbines

Markus Wagner, Kalyan Veeramachaneni, Frank Neumann, Una-May O'Reilly


In this paper we demonstrate an accurate, efficient,
and parallelizable optimization algorithm for the layout
of hundreds, then 1000, turbines. It is modular and
therefore allows different wake effect models to be in-
corporated. Its computational cost is a relation which
depends upon how many candidate layouts it investi-
gates and the complexity of its wake loss calculation.
We demonstrate how well it maximizes energy capture
and show how it allows one to examine how wake loss
scales with energy capture and number of turbines.