A Review of Optimization Technologies for Large-Scale Wind Farm Planning With Practical and Prospective Concerns

Wind energy utilization is essential for realizing global energy transformation. To capture steady and powerful wind resources, wind turbines tend to be more remotely located with increasingly larger scales. This requires more sophisticated wind farm (WF) planning techniques to increase power production, reduce investment cost, and enhance power supply reliability, or pursue a balance among them. This article establishes a research framework for large-scale WF planning, with a technical review of the optimization methodologies involved, aiming to provide an updated, broader, and forward-looking vision for WF planners. Beyond the state-of-the-art summary of WF planning in the realm of wind turbines' micro-siting and collector system design techniques, the related considerations on various practical factors are also well assessed including reliability, equipment rating, environment, and landscape. Further, viewing WF as an integrated system with scale expansion, the new research areas including WF joint-planning and redevelopment are explored and discussed to provide strong technical references for the foreseeable future.