Mixed integer programming models for wind farm design

There is significant potential for optimizing the design of a wind farm in New Zealand. The complex nature of the wind resource and the larger size of the wind farms being built increase the complexity of the decisions that need to be made, while tight economic margins create a drive for greater efficiency. Current industry practice utilises commercial packages that are heuristic in nature and limited in the types of constraints that can be modelled. A mixed integer programming model for optimizing the layout of a wind farm has been developed that is capable of determining the optimal locations of turbines subject to constraints on the number of turbines, turbine proximity, and turbine wake. Results have shown that this model produces layouts that are comparable to those from a commercial package. Moreover, this model can be extended to include capital budget constraints, noise and line of sight restrictions, constraints relating to wind quality such as maximum gusts, inflow angles and turbulence, as well as modelling reticulation and different mixes of turbines.