Coordinated layout planning of ocean current turbines and collector system considering spatial velocity distribution

Abstract Ocean current generation has become a popular form of supplying electric energy by using fluid kinetic energy. For ocean current, the key difference from other planning can be embodied in the turbine layout planning region, which needs to be considered as a three-dimensional area. Considering that, this paper investigates the three-dimensional ocean current turbines and collector system coordinated layout planning model. First, a velocity-depth curve of interest current area is determined by fitting historical velocity data. Then, a three-dimensional ocean current wake model is derived through the integral form of momentum conservation to analyze the influence of the wake effect on the velocity of the three-dimensional distributed turbine array. Finally, a two-level three-dimensional location and capacity planning model is established which involve three-dimensional topology constraints, with the upper-level goal of minimizing the whole system cost, and the lower-level goal of minimizing the cost of power collection topology. The accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed model are investigated through the case study on the current data of the Gulf of Mexico.