State of the art of wind farm optimization

In recent years the trend has been to collect wind generators into larger and larger wind farms. As the investments are substantial, the optimization of the wind farm layout plays a major role today. The scope of the present work is to define the state of the art in wind farm optimization. To do so the literature of the last two decades has been analyzed, and the structure of the problem has been defined. The most effective techniques and models used in the past are described. The common pitfalls are listed as well, with the aim to create a blueprint for future development of wind farm optimization tools/softwares. The main findings concern the high dependency of the resulting layout on the objective function chosen, which objective should be as detailed as possible; the energy yield alone has been proven not to be the best function for practical purposes. The need for all-encompassing functions requires the costs to be computed besides the production yield. New strategies have been developed to handle comprehensive objective functions and to reduce long computational times, namely the “two-steps” optimization, which consist of a combination of two algorithms, usually a meta-heuristic and a local search approach. The last point touched by this work highlights the areas where a better understanding is needed and more research should be addressed, like the models for degradation and the solving algorithms used.