Cable connection optimization for heterogeneous offshore wind farms via a voronoi diagram based adaptive particle swarm optimization with local search

Offshore wind energy, as one of the featured rich renewable energy sources, is getting more and more attention. The cable connection layout has a significant impact on the economic performance of offshore wind farms. To make better use of the wind resources of a given sea area, a new method for optimal construction of offshore wind farms with different types of wind turbines has emerged in recent years. In such a wind farm, the capacities of wind turbines are not identical which brings new challenges for the cable connection layout optimization. In this work, an optimization model named CCLOP is proposed for such wind farms. The model incorporates both the cable capital cost and the cost of power losses associated with the cables in its objective function. To get an optimized result, a Voronoi diagram based adaptive particle swarm optimization with local search is proposed and applied. The simulation results show that the proposed method can help find a solution that is 12.74% outperformed than a benchmark. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.