Short-cut design of wind farms

The problem of designing wind parks has been addressed in terms of maximizi ng the economic benefits of such an investment. An appropriate mathematical model for wind turbines was used, taking into account their construction c haracteristics and operational performance. The regional wind field charact eristics for a wide range of sites have been appropriately analyzed and a m odel involving significant physical parameters has been developed. The desi gn problem was formulated as a mathematical programming problem, and solved using appropriate mathematical programming techniques. The optimization co vered a wide range of site characteristics and four types of commercially a vailable wind turbines. The methodology introduced a short-cut design empir ical equation for the determination of the optimum number of wind turbines. The model is appropriate for regional planning purposes. Variation of unit cost of wind farm area introduced an additional degree of freedom to the p roblem and more efficient designs could be obtained. (C) 2001 Elsevier Scie nce Ltd. All rights reserved.