Decision-Making in Wind Farm Design

The second stage of the life cycle of wind farms is related to the planning and design of them including the layout design of the wind turbines. Wind farm layout has become increasingly important in recent decades, on the one hand, due to the promotion of wind energy development, and on the other hand, due to the differences in different geographical locations and conditions. By optimizing the wind farm layout, the micrositing of wind turbines aims to achieve a good balance between power output and wind farm costs. Micrositing of wind turbines is the process by which the specific location of wind turbines is determined. Each position must meet several requirements in terms of existing wind resources, distances from other wind turbines and neighbors, etc. Therefore, the optimal layout of the wind farm aims at the optimal distribution of the wind turbines in the wind farm, so as to achieve the maximum energy production according to the design parameters of the wind turbine used. This chapter describes various single-criteria and multicriteria models applicable to the layout design of wind farms with different specific characteristics. It is shown how multi-attribute decision-making techniques and multi-objective optimizations can be integrated into a framework to support the design of wind farms. The use of this integrated approach makes it possible both to generate alternatives (different layouts of wind farm design) and to realize a choice of one of them. Two models of wind farm layout design are also presented, in which the site area has forbidden zones with regular and irregular geometry for turbine placement. A model for optimizing the location of wind turbines, taking into account the location of the common connection point, is also described. Finally, a combinatorial decision-making model for the selection of an optimal site for the hybrid wind-solar power plant is proposed.