The encyclopedia · Engineering & Operations · Technical decision · 2016-2019
Vattenfall optimized offshore turbine layouts, adding €150M in value.
Vattenfall used mixed-integer programming to place turbines and route cables in offshore wind farms, adding about €10M of NPV per farm and €150M total.
Vattenfall
the move
Offshore wind farm economics hinge on two interconnected design decisions: where to put each turbine, and how to cable them together. Turbines placed too close steal wind from each other, while moving one changes foundation cost and cable length across the whole farm.
Vattenfall and DTU built mixed-integer programming models and matheuristics that solve turbine placement and cable routing jointly, accounting for wind conditions, water depth, soil and electrical losses. The tools replaced a slow, largely manual design process.
The optimization delivered roughly €10 million of net present value per farm and faster, more streamlined design. Across the sites Vattenfall had already acquired, the tools produced NPV gains of more than €150 million, strengthening the company's position in offshore tenders.
why it works
- Wake interference means each turbine placement affects every other's output
- Cables are among the largest capital costs and depend on the layout chosen
- Solving the farm jointly captures interactions a spreadsheet cannot
- Faster design let Vattenfall bid into more tenders with better economics
what transfers
When local choices create interference with neighbors, the right move is to solve the whole farm at once; optimizing each turbine alone leaves money on the seabed.
what came after
Vattenfall won the 2019 Franz Edelman Award for the work. The tools were used to design the first offshore wind farms built subsidy-free, and the methods helped make green energy cheaper for end customers. The findings were published in the journal Interfaces.
references
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