Collection grid optimization of a floating offshore wind farm using particle swarm theory

Floating substructures for offshore wind turbines is a promising solution in order to harness the vast wind potential of deep water sites where bottom-fixed turbines are not feasible. The electrical system of large scale floating offshore wind farms will experience the application of new technologies and installation procedures that likely affect the cost-competitiveness. Thus, in this work, an optimization model based on the particle swarm theory is presented that allows optimizing the collection grid of a floating offshore wind farm. The developed model is applied to a study case consisting of a 500MW floating offshore wind farm located at the Golfe de Fos in the Mediterranean Sea. The resulting layout allows to reduce the total cost of the collection grid by more than 6% and to decrease the energy losses by 8% compared to the actual layout. Besides this, a further study analyzes the effect of a quantity discount with a reduced number of power cable cross sections