Artificial Intelligence for Optimal Sitting of Individual and Networks of Wind Farms

Author(s):  
Seyyed Pooya Hekmati Athar ◽  
Dorsa Ziaei ◽  
Navid Goudarzi

Abstract Renewable Energy (RE)-based power production often comes with certain challenges in variability and uncertainty of generated electricity. One promising solution to tackle these challenges is developing a network of RE power plants with sites located far enough from each other that experience different weather patterns. Most of the site selection-related literature use Geographical Information Systems to determine the studied site RE suitability. This work converts the site selection into a numerical problem through a novel Networked Renewable Power Plant Site Selection model and solves it by employing optimization techniques. To enhance the accuracy of the results, it compares a set of criteria for individual and network of sites at different regions to determine the exact locations for RE plant developments. The Analytical Hierarchy Process is used for criteria weighing. The state-of-the-art meta-heuristic Bare Bones of Fireworks algorithm offer a simple, fast, yet accurate approach to solve the optimization. The proposed method is applied on North Carolina wind farms for both individual and a network of sites. The results identified the areas with the highest wind capacity potential for individual or a network of wind farms in North Carolina. The identified suitable areas were verified with Amazon Wind Farm US East.

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 865
Author(s):  
Hugo Díaz ◽  
Carlos Guedes Soares

The study presents a methodology for floating wind farms site selection with a Canary Islands case study. The frame combines geographical information systems (GIS) and multiple criteria decision methods (MCDMs). First, the problematic areas for the installation of the turbines are identified through a GIS database application. This tool generates thematic layers representing exclusion criteria. Then, at the second stage of the study, available maritime locations are analyzed and ranked using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), based on technical, economic, and environmental aspects. AHP’s technique guarantee the elimination of the judgment’s subjectivity. The study also compared the solutions of the AHP technique with other methods, such as Preference Ranking Organization METHod for Enrichment of Evaluations (PROMETHEE), ELimination Et Choix Traduisant la Realité (ELECTRE III), Technique for Order Preferences by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and Weighted Sum Algorithm (WSA(). The main result of this study is the creation of a realistic and objective overview of floating offshore wind farm site selection and the contribution to minimize the environmental impacts and to reduce the social conflicts between stakeholders.


2020 ◽  
pp. 0309524X2092539
Author(s):  
Mohamed Elgabiri ◽  
Diane Palmer ◽  
Hanan Al Buflasa ◽  
Murray Thomson

Current global commitments to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases encourage national targets for renewable generation. Due to its small land mass, offshore wind could help Bahrain to fulfil its obligations. However, no scoping study has been carried out yet. The methodology presented here addresses this research need. It employs analytical hierarchy process and pairwise comparison methods in a geographical information systems environment. Publicly available land use, infrastructure and transport data are used to exclude areas unsuitable for development due to physical and safety constraints. Meteorological and oceanic opportunities are ranked and then competing uses are analyzed to deliver optimal sites for wind farms. The potential annual wind energy yield is calculated by dividing the sum of optimal areas by a suitable turbine footprint to deliver maximum turbine number. In total, 10 favourable wind farm areas were identified in Bahrain’s territorial waters, representing about 4% of the total maritime area, and capable of supplying 2.68 TWh/year of wind energy or almost 10% of the Kingdom’s annual electricity consumption. Detailed maps of potential sites for offshore wind construction are provided in the article, giving an initial plan for installation in these locations.


Author(s):  
Diane Palmer ◽  
Mohamed Elgabiri ◽  
Hanan Al Buflasa ◽  
Murray Thomson

Current global commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases encourage national targets for renewable generation. Due to its small land mass, offshore wind could help Bahrain to fulfill its obligations. However, no scoping study has yet been carried out. The methodology presented here addresses this research need. It employs Analytical Hierarchy Process and pairwise comparison methods in a Geographical Information Systems environment. Publicly available land use, infrastructure and transport data are used to exclude areas unsuitable for development due to physical and safety constraints. Meteorological and oceanic opportunities are ranked, then competing uses are analyzed to deliver optimal sites for wind farms. The potential annual wind energy yield is calculated by dividing the sum of optimal areas by a suitable turbine footprint, to deliver maximum turbine number. Ten favourable wind farm areas were identified in Bahrain’s territorial waters, representing about 4% of the total maritime area, and capable of supplying 2.68 TWh/yr of wind energy or almost 10% of the Kingdom’s annual electricity consumption. Detailed maps of potential sites for offshore wind construction are provided in the paper, giving an initial plan for installation in these locations.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 204-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kornel Rozsavolgyi

Our research is on the spatial allocation of possible wind energy usage. We would like to carry this out with a newly developed model (CMPAM = Complex Multifactoral Polygenetic Adaptive Model), which basically is a climateoriented system, but other kind of factors are also considered. With this model those areas and terrains can be located where construction of wind farms would be reasonable. The wind field modeling core of CMPAM is mainly based on sequential Gaussian simulation (sGs) otherwise known as geostatistics. But concepts from atmospheric physics and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are used as well. For application for Hungary WAsP generated 10 m wind speed data was used as input data. The geocorrection (geometric correction) of this data was performed by us. Using optimized variography and sGs, our results were applied for Hungary in different heights. Simulation results for different heights are summarized furthermore, an exponential regressive function describing the vertical wind profile was also established. From the complex analyses of CMPAM, results derived to the 100 m height are also included and explained in a map in this paper. This produces a basis for certain several possible sites for the utilization of wind energy, under given conditions.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Georgiou ◽  
Dimitrios Skarlatos

Abstract. Among the renewable powers sources, solar is rapidly becoming popular being inexhaustible, clean, and dependable. It is also becoming more efficient since the photovoltaic solar cells' power conversion efficiency is rising. Following these trends, solar power will become more affordable in years to come and considerable investments are to be expected. Despite the size of solar plants, the sitting procedure is a crucial factor for their efficiency and financial viability. Many aspects rule such decision; legal, environmental, technical, and financial to name some. This paper describes a general integrated framework to evaluate land suitability for the optimal placement of photovoltaic solar power plants, which is based on a combination of a Geographic Information System (GIS), remote sensing techniques and multi-criteria decision making methods. An application of the proposed framework for Limassol District in Cyprus is further illustrated. The combination of GIS and multi-criteria methods, consist an excellent analysis tool that creates an extensive database of spatial and non spatial data that will be used to simplify problems, to solve and promote the use of multiple criteria. A set of environmental, economic, social and technical constrains based on recent Cypriot legislation, European's Union policies and experts' advices, identifies the potential sites for solar park installation. The pair-wise comparison method in the context of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to estimate the criteria weights in order to establish their relative importance in site evaluation. In addition, four different methods to combine information layers and check their sensitivity were used. The first considered all the criteria as being equally important and assign them equal weight, while the others grouped the criteria and graded them according to their objective perceived importance. The overall suitability of the study region for sitting solar park is appraised through the summation rule. Strict application of the framework depicts 3.0 % of the study region scoring best suitability index for solar resource exploitation, hence minimizing risk of a potential investment. However, using different weighting schemes for criteria, suitable areas may reach up to 83 % of the study region. The suggested methodological framework applied can be easily utilized by potential investors and renewable energy developers, through a front end web based application with proper GUI for personalized weighting schemes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 178 ◽  
pp. 09004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul E. Kargashin ◽  
Anna I. Prasolova ◽  
Boguslav A. Novakovsky ◽  
Yulia Yu. Rafikova ◽  
Roman V. Gorbunov ◽  
...  

Estimation of optimal location for power plants using renewable energy sources requires big data processing and consideration lots of factors. It is suggested to use geographical information systems based approach to simplify workflow. The result of investigation is a series of maps divided into 2 groups: estimation of natural resources for renewable energy, and evaluation of limitations caused with socioeconomic policy. These maps help us to outline the most suitable as well as restricted places for perspective power plants.


Author(s):  
Othman A. Omar ◽  
Niveen M. Badra ◽  
Mahmoud A. Attia ◽  
Ahmed Gad

AbstractElectric power systems are allowing higher penetration levels of renewable energy resources, mainly due to their environmental benefits. The majority of electrical energy generated by renewable energy resources is contributed by wind farms. However, the stochastic nature of these resources does not allow the installed generation capacities to be entirely utilized. In this context, this paper attempts to improve the performance of fixed-speed wind turbines. Turbines of this type have been already installed in some classical wind farms and it is not feasible to replace them with variable-speed ones before their lifetime ends. A fixed-speed turbine is typically connected to the electric grid with a Static VAR Compensator (SVC) across its terminal. For a better dynamic voltage response, the controller gains of a Proportional-Integral (PI) voltage regulator within the SVC will be tuned using a variety of optimization techniques to minimize the integrated square of error for the wind farm terminal voltage. Similarly, the controller gains of the turbine’s pitch angle may be tuned to enhance its dynamic output power performance. Simulation results, in this paper, show that the pitch angle controller causes a significant minimization in the integrated square of error for the wind farm output power. Finally, an advanced Proportional-Integral-Acceleration (PIA) voltage regulator controller has been proposed for the SVC. When the PIA control gains are optimized, they result in a better performance than the classical PI controller.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjeev H. Kulkarni ◽  
Tumkur Ramakrishnarao Anil ◽  
Rajakumar Dyamenally Gowdar

With maturity of advanced technologies and urgent requirement for maintaining a healthy environment with reasonable price, India is moving towards a trend of generating electricity from renewable resources. Wind energy production, with its relatively safer and positive environmental characteristics, has evolved from a marginal activity into a multibillion dollar industry today. Wind energy power plants, also known as wind farms, comprise multiple wind turbines. Though there are several wind-mill clusters producing energy in different geographical locations across the world, evaluating their performance is a complex task and is an important focus for stakeholders. In this work an attempt is made to estimate the performance of wind clusters employing a multicriteria approach. Multiple factors that affect wind farm operations are analyzed by taking experts opinions, and a performance ranking of the wind farms is generated. The weights of the selection criteria are determined by pairwise comparison matrices of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The proposed methodology evaluates wind farm performance based on technical, economic, environmental, and sociological indicators. Both qualitative and quantitative parameters were considered. Empirical data were collected through questionnaire from the selected wind farms of Belagavi district in the Indian State of Karnataka. This proposed methodology is a useful tool for cluster analysis.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-243 ◽  

Wind energy offers significant potential for greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Most applications have been developed onshore but the planning and siting conflicts with other land uses have created considerable interest and motivated research to offshore wind energy establishments. In this paper, a systematic methodology in order to investigate the most efficient areas of offshore wind farms’ siting in Greece is performed, integrating multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools. In the first level of analysis, all coastal areas that don’t fulfill a certain set of criteria (wind velocity, protected areas, water depth) are identified with the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and excluded from further analysis. The Analytical Hierarchy Process is performed in the evaluation phase and pairwise comparisons provide the most appropriate sites to locate offshore wind farms. Information concerning evaluation criteria (average wind velocity, distance to protected areas, distance to ship routes, distance to the shore and distance of possible connection to the existing electricity network) is retrieved through GIS, eliminating the subjectivity in judgments. The whole methodology contributes to the portrait of the geographic analysis and stands as the last image of the space characteristics suitable for offshore wind farms.


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