Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 51 (1994) 105-116

Elsevier

105

Optimization of wind turbine positioning in large

windfarms by means of a genetic algorithm
G. M o s e t t i , C. P o l o n i a n d B. D i v i a c c o
Dipartirnento di Energetica, Universit~ degli Studi di Trieste, Via Valerio 10, 34100 Trieste,
Italy

(Received October 21, 1992; accepted in revised form May 17, 1993)

Summary
In this paper a novel approach to the optimization of large windfarms is presented. The
wind turbine distribution at a given site is optimized in order to extract the maximum energy
for the minimum installation costs. The optimization is made by associating a windfarm
simulation model based on wake superposition with a genetic search code. The purpose of the
paper is to prove the feasibility of the method by analyzing the results obtained in some
simple applications. As a test case, a square site subdivided into 100 square cells as possible
turbine locations has been taken, and the optimization is applied to the number and position
of the turbines for three wind cases: single direction, constant intensity with variable
direction, and variable intensity with variable direction.

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n
W i n d t u r b i n e s for p r o d u c i n g e l e c t r i c a l e n e r g y n o w a d a y s a r e m a t u r e in
t e c h n o l o g y . W h e r e l a r g e wind r e s o u r c e s exist, wind e n e r g y c o n v e r t e r s a r e e v e n
b e c o m i n g e c o n o m i c a l l y c o m p e t i t i v e c o m p a r e d to e l e c t r i c a l p o w e r p r o d u c e d by
o t h e r c o n v e n t i o n a l m e a n s . H o w e v e r , for m u l t i - m e g a w a t t p r o d u c t i o n , a l a r g e
n u m b e r of wind t u r b i n e s m u s t be installed, a n d t h e efficiency of t h e w i n d f a r m is
h i g h l y influenced b y t h e i r p o s i t i o n i n g . T h e p r e s e n t w o r k discusses a n o v e l
a p p r o a c h to t h e w i n d t u r b i n e p o s i t i o n i n g problem. T h e m e t h o d a d o p t e d is
b a s e d on t h e p r i n c i p l e s of g e n e t i c s a n d n a t u r a l e v o l u t i o n , t h a t m a k e s t h e
o p t i m i z a t i o n p r o c e d u r e i n d e p e n d e n t of local o p t i m a or f u n c t i o n g r a d i e n t s .
T h e o p t i m i z a t i o n p r o b l e m of t h e w i n d t u r b i n e d i s t r i b u t i o n a t a g i v e n site
m u s t c o n s i d e r the following s t a t e m e n t s :
- t h e w i n d t u r b i n e s influence e a c h other,

Correspondence to: Prof. C. Poloni, Dipartimento di Energetica, Universitfi degli Studi di

Trieste, Via Valerio 10, 34100 Trieste, Italy.

0167-6105/94/$07.00 1994 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

SSDI 0167-6105(93)E0033-U

106

G. Mosetti et al./Optimization of wind turbine positioning

- the wind varies in d i r e c t i o n and intensity,

- t h e wind farm should e x t r a c t the m a x i m u m e n e r g y for the m i n i m u m
i n s t a l l a t i o n cost.
In o r d e r to obtain the "best s o l u t i o n " it is necessary:
- to k n o w the b o u n d a r i e s of the problem (i.e. the e x t e n t of the terrain, the wind
distribution, the type of t u r b i n e s available and t h e i r cost etc.),
- to be able to model the b e h a v i o r of a wind farm configuration,
- to be able to e v a l u a t e its "goodness",
- to be able to c o n v e n i e n t l y r e a c h a n o p t i m u m by exploring a small n u m b e r of
possible configurations.
F o r these purposes two distinct a l g o r i t h m s h a v e been prepared, one for the
windfarm p e r f o r m a n c e e v a l u a t i o n and one for the optimization procedure. T h e
windfarm modelling has been made using the RISO a p p r o a c h r e p o r t e d in Refs.
[1,2], while the optimization p r o c e d u r e is based on a genetic a l g o r i t h m [3].
In the p r e s e n t w o r k the t o t a l e x t r a c t e d power and the i n v e s t m e n t cost h a v e
been optimized assuming a simple r e l a t i o n b e t w e e n the cost of a single t u r b i n e
and the n u m b e r of m a c h i n e s installed. A more sophisticated windfarm model
with a l a r g e r n u m b e r of objectives and c o n s t r a i n t s as well as a more realistic
e c o n o m i c a l model could be implemented in o r d e r to o b t a i n more p r a c t i c a l
optimization results.

2.

Windfarm

modelling

The purpose of this w o r k is to d e m o n s t r a t e the applicability of the m e t h o d

and, therefore, some simple assumptions h a v e been made c o n c e r n i n g the
w i n d f a r m modelling. The model used is similar to the w a k e decay model
developed by N.O. J e n s e n [1,2]. Assuming t h a t the m o m e n t u m is c o n s e r v e d in
the wake, the wind speed u d o w n s t r e a m the t u r b i n e is:

(1)

w h e r e a is the axial i n d u c t i o n factor, x is the distance d o w n s t r e a m the turbine,

rl is the down s t r e a m r o t o r radius and ~ is the e n t r a i n m e n t c o n s t a n t (see
Fig. 1).
T h e t u r b i n e t h r u s t coefficient and the down s t r e a m r o t o r radius are linked to
the axial i n d u c t i o n factor, a, and the r o t o r radius, RR, t h r o u g h the Betz
relations:

CT = 4a(1 -- a),

/1-a
r l = rr _ ] :---~-
~] l - - z a

(2)

G. Mosetti et al./Optirnization of wind turbine positioning

107

~dary
Mi I ~

--I

Mi+l

Fig. 1. Schematic multiple wake model.

The entrainment constant is given by empirical means [2] as:

0.5

(3)

where Zo is the surface roughness of the site and z is the hub height of the wind
turbine. Assuming t h a t the kinetic energy deficit of a mixed wake is equal to
the sum of the energy deficits, the resulting velocity downstream of n turbines
can be calculated using the following expression:

1----

Uo/

i= 1

(4)

Uo/

The thrust coefficient and the electrical power produced by a single turbine are
given as a function of the local wind speed. The wind characteristics are given
by the three parameters direction, intensity, and probability (i.e. time/year
t h a t a particular wind exists), while the turbine characteristics considered
are rotor diameter, hub height, and thrust coefficient and electrical power
extracted as a function of the wind speed.
In order to optimize the windfarm from the economical point of view, it is
necessary to model the cost. In the present example, a simple model is used that
considers only the number of turbines as relevant variable to determine the
cost/year of the windfarm.
We assume t h a t the non-dimensionalized cost/year of a single turbine is
1 and t h a t a maximum cost reduction of 1/3 can be obtained for each turbine if
a large number of machines are installed. We then assume t h a t the total

108

G. Mosetti et al./Optimization of wind turbine positioning

cost/year of the whole windfarm can be expressed by the following relation:

costtot = Nt ( 2 + e - o.oo 174N~),

(5)

where Nt is the number of turbine installed.

The objective of the optimization is to produce the highest amount of energy
at the minimum cost and can be seen as the minimization of the following
function:
1
costtot
Objective = ~ - w 1+ --:---- w2,
--tot

"/')tot

(6)

where Ptot is the total energy produced in one year, Nt is the number of
turbines, wl and w2 are arbitrarily chosen weights, and costtot is the cost/year
of the whole windfarm. In the following examples wl has been kept small, since
we are looking more for the lowest cost per energy produced.

3. Optimization algorithm
Typical optimization problems are usually solved by means of a "hill
climbing procedure" based mainly on local gradients of a stated "cost function". However, a typical drawback of this approach is the risk of finding only
a local optimum, and the impossibility of finding a global optimum starting
from the same configuration, if the configuration space is not simply connected. The windfarm positioning problem is a typical discrete problem that,
similar to the travelling salesman problem, is impossible to solve exactly, and
where a simple gradient-based method cannot easily be applied. A grid of
10 x 10 possible windturbine locations, even if for each grid point consideration
is restricted only to the two possibilities of having or not having a turbine at
each location, means 21 possibilities to explore, which far exceeds the capability of any existing computer. A genetic search algorithm, developed first by
Holland [4], can be applied to this case in a straightforward way. In what
follows only a brief summary of the method will be given, while a more
extensive discussion on the subject can be found in Ref. [5].
The basic idea of the method is the one of the biological evolution through
simple transformation of a coded configuration. As in the natural process of
reproduction, the genetic information stored in a chromosomal string of two
individuals is used to create the genetic code of a new individual. Evolution
and adaptation of the specie are guaranteed because the best individuals have
the highest probability of surviving and reproducing.
The basic process that can occur in the construction of a new chromosomal
string are random mutation of a gene, an exchange of genetic information
between the reproducing parents and an inversion of the chromosomal string.
In the following we will consider only the first two, namely mutation and
crossover. The choice of the individuals subjected to the reproduction process,
namely crossover and mutation, is randomly made, assigning a probability to

G. Mosetti et al./Optimization of wind turbine positioning

109

be extracted to each individual proportional to their fitness. The following

correspondence of terms can be made:
gene
individual
generation
fitness function
social success

=
=
=
=
=

design parameter,
design configuration,
evolution stage of the design,
design quality,
optimality of the design.

It must be noted t h a t in simulating a biological evolution of a specie the

optimization process will start searching from multiple points of the configuration space, while traditional gradient based optimization or even adaptive
random search, essentially start from single point of the design space.

3.1. The genetic algorithm applied to windfarms

The tar g et of the evolution is to find the best windfarm configuration on
a given terrain. For simplicity we can consider as design variable only the
position of a number of turbines of a given type. Let us subdivide the available
t e r r a i n into cells where a turbine could be installed. In this m anner a string
r ep r es en tatio n of a windfarm can be easily found: 1 if in the relative cell
a turbine exists, 0 if it does not.
A windfarm configuration in a t er r ai n divided into 10 cells will then be
represented by a binary number between A=0000000000 and B = 1111111111.
A mu tatio n will switch one bit, while a crossover between two parents will
perform the following transformation:
P a r e n t 1 = 0010110011
P a r e n t 2 = 1110001010
Child 1 = 0010001011
Child 2 = 1110110010
In the example, the crossover locations t h a t are exchanged between the two
parents to create the children are from the fourth to the eighth bit. The
"goodness" of each individual is defined by the fitness function t hat will be
maximized, and t h a t can easily be defined as the inverse of the objective
function previously defined.
Starting from a given population the fitness of each individual of the population must be evaluated t h r o u g h the windfarm model previously described and
on the basis of the fitness value the next generation must be constructed. The
new population is obtained t h r o u g h crossover and m ut at i on among the fittest
individuals and at random locations. Both operations will occur with a certain
probability 0 . 6 < P < 0 . 9 for a crossover and 0.01<Pro<0.1 for a mutation.
A crossover has a higher probability because it is mainly responsible for the
"local evolution" of the population while a m ut at i on rarely occurs as it is
responsible for the random introduction of new characters into the population.
If only crossovers are applied, the population will soon get "sterilized" and
probably converge to a local optimum, while if only mutations are applied, the
algorithm becomes a sort of random search.

110

G. Mosetti et al./Optimization of wind turbine positioning

It must be noted t hat the method in the end looks for a better population and
not directly for the best individual. Therefore, the best solution could even be
found at the early stages of the evolution. However, as the mean fitness of the
population will increase, the fittest individual will probably be part of the most
evolved population.

4. R e s u l t s
In what follows some numerical experiments will be illustrated in order to
demonstrate the capabilities of the method, and not for the solution of a practical optimization problem, and, therefore, some crude assumptions about wind
distribution and turbine characteristics will be made. The optimization of
a windfarm on a square shaped t e r r a i n subdivided into 100 possible turbine
location will be considered under three significant conditions: the case of
a single wind direction and intensity, the case of a constant intensity and 360
variable direction, and the case of a more realistic wind distribution. The
possible turbine location will be the center of a square cell having a side
size equal to five turbine diameters. A 5D cell guarantee the accuracy of the
wake decay model t ha t at a smaller distance could be inappropriate. The total
size of the windfarm site is therefore 50D 50D. All optimization procedures
will start from random configurations even though for practical cases, a better
initialization of the genetic search could sensibly reduce the computation time
required.
Only one wind turbine type has been considered having a h = 6 0 m hub
height, a 40 m diameter, a thrust coefficient equal to Ct=0.88, constant for the
wind speeds considered, and a power curve as shown in Fig. 2. The site
roughness is Zo = 0.3 m.

700
600
500
400
30O
2OO
100
,

6
8
10 12
Wind Speed (M/s)

16

Fig. 2. Power curve for the turbine considered.

18

G. Mosetti et al./ Optimization of wind turbine positioning

111

4.1. The case of a single w i n d direction

In this simple case the optimum can be intuitively understood. The objective
function to be maximized will consider the inverse of the investment cost per
kW installed (that will reach a practical minimum with about 30 machines),
and the maximum power extracted t h a t would reach its maximum when 100
machines are installed. Intuitively, the optimal solution will have less than 30
turbines at the largest reciprocal distance, in order to minimize the single
turbine performance deterioration due to the presence of other machines.
Figure 3 shows the behavior of the minimum, maximum and average of the
fitness function as a function of the population for a given population size. It
can be noted that the difference between maximum and minimum fitness
decreases as the convergence proceeds. Figure 4 shows t h a t population sizes of
200 and 300 converge to approximately the same maximum fitness value while
a 100 population size has not enough variability and therefore converges to
a lower fitness.
A random configuration with 40 to 50 machines would typically have a wind
farm efficiency of 0.50, defined as the ratio between the total energy extracted
by the windfarm having Nt turbines and Nt times the energy extracted by an
isolated turbine with the same undisturbed wind, while an optimized configuration would reach an efficiency of 0.95 with about 25 machines. As can be
expected for a single wind direction, the optimized configuration presents two
to three turbines per column at distances larger than 15D as shown in Fig. 5a.
4.2. The case of multiple w i n d direction with constant intensity
In this case a preferable orientation does not exist. The efficiency of each
turbine is mainly determined by the distance from any other turbine. The

0.8

....

Fit

min.

....

Fit

ave.

--Fit
4
I

0.7

Pc ~ulation s i z e 2 0 0

max.

i
i

i
,

~=

.~ , , ~ ' ~ ' ~
ir

_,~-.-~ ~-"

-'-~ "-"~

.A=I ~s-

t ~'i

e-

0.6

.[

LL

/"

.~

., i

~-~*

...........~.,~ .............. :~~.~~ .~, ~

,
~~..,]--.-..,-

0.4

i
0

~=

Q Y~ L,~

~. . . . . . . . . . . .

.~'

100

~'

, t

t,~,'~ ri

i
200

[
300

400

Generation

Fig. 3. F i t n e s s curves for a g i v e n p o p u l a t i o n size for the single direction case.

G. Mosetti et al.] Optimization of wind turbine positioning

112
.... Fit

max.

300

.... Fit max.

--Fit
max.

100
200

Max.

Fitness

0.8

0.74

09
f:
LL

0.68
*~..,...
0.62

....... !

)~ : ). ~".i.~...:~
[.I [ ;
( .

........4...................

.)

g. . . . . . . .

i
i

0.56

0.5
100

200

300

400

Generation

Fig. 4. Maximum fitness curve for various population sizes for the single direction case

a)

b)

Fig. 5. Positions of the turbines for (a) a single direction, and (b) multiple directions.

G. Mosetti et al./ Optimization of wind turbine positioning

113

optimal configuration, as confirmed in Fig. 5b, will therefore have the most of
the turbines along the edges of the domain. In this case an efficiency of 0.35 for
a random configuration having 19 turbines.
In Fig. 6, the behavior of the fitness function is reported for different
population sizes. It can be seen that even in this case, a population of 200
individuals with 350 iterations can be sufficient to reach a well optimized
configuration even starting from a random distribution.
4.3. The case of multiple w i n d direction and intensity
In this case the optimal solution cannot be intuitively found as wind speed,
direction and frequency play a fundamental role in the mutual influence
between different turbines. For the wind distribution, summarized in Fig. 7,
three intensities and 36 directions (every 10) are assumed, while the frequency
is given as a fraction of time unit for which a certain wind exists. In this case
only a calculation with 200 configurations times 400 iterations has been made.
Figure 8 shows the maximum, minimum and average fitness in the population
as a function of the number of iterations, and Fig. 9 shows the number of
turbines for the best configuration found in each iteration. As can be seen, the
optimum number is between 15 and 18 turbines. Figure 10 shows the positions
of the turbines for the multiple direction and multiple intensities case.
The results obtained for all the optimized parameters are summarized in
Table 1, where the parameters for a random configuration having 42 turbines
installed and for an optimized configuration having 15 turbines installed
shown in Fig. 9 are compared. The wind farm efficiency, which is dependent on
the wind orientation only and not on the integral of the produced energy, goes
from 0.34 to 0.84, the energy produced is decreased by 29% but the installation
cost is reduced by 50%.

- - - Fit m a x . 1 0 0
---Fit
24

max.200

--Fit.

Max Fitness

max.300

,1

.~, :~.?.;~,r~, ",,~,"

22.4

~.f ,.
~

~'~

i,W:,

.;;,~'
;

i,,,." ~ ' !

,i.

,--n,r.,

20.8
LL

I 7=' Ji J

i.

19.2

17.6

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

16
0

100

200

300

400

Generation

Fig. 6. Maximum fitness curve for various population sizes for the multiple direction case.

G. Mosetti et al./Optimization of wind turbine positioning

114

[] 8 m/s
[] 12 m / s
[ ] 17

Wind

m/s

distribution

o-e 3
(D
c-

"O

- 1

0
0

70

140

210

Angle

280

350

(o)

Fig. 7. W i n d d i s t r i b u t i o n for t h e v a r i a b l e i n t e n s i t y a n d v a r i a b l e d i r e c t i o n case.

28

.......Fit min.
---Fit ave.
iFit
max.
a
i

Population size 200

I
i

i
i

..............L.o..

25

I
i

............. L:,I:.::::::..;;;'C

22
c-

..... : ................... i ...................

19

U_

16

:~,i;:., f ~ ..............i
i'!ii

-i

"

!.

13

..~

10
0

100

200

300

400

Generation
Fig. 8. M a x i m u m fitness c u r v e for v a r i o u s p o p u l a t i o n sizes for t h e m u l t i p l e d i r e c t i o n a n d
m u l t i p l e i n t e n s i t i e s case.

5. C o m p u t a t i o n t i m e
The computation time required for the optimization is mainly determined by
the windfarm simulation module. More than 90% of the cpu time is spent in the
routines that evaluate the fitness of the configuration. The computation time
is, therefore, almost proportional to the number of calls to the windfarm

G. Mosetti et al./Optimization of wind turbine positioning

115

Population size 200

42

m
D 3 4

~o

26

E
z

18

10
100

200

300

400

Generation
Fig. 9. N u m b e r of t u r b i n e s as t h e c o n v e r g e n c e proceeds.

Fig. 10. P o s i t i o n s of t h e t u r b i n e s for t h e multiple d i r e c t i o n and multiple i n t e n s i t i e s case.

Table 1
Optimized p a r a m e t e r s c o m p a r e d w i t h a n o n optimized c o n f i g u r a t i o n for t h e t h r e e cases
considered
Efficiency

Pt= (kWyear)

cost/kWyear

Nt

Random
Optimized

0.50
0.95

13025
12375

2.57 x 10- 3
1.57 10-3

50
25

Random
Optimized

0.35
0.88

9117
8711

3.68 x 10- 3
1.84 x 10- 3

50
19

Random
Optimized

0.34
0.84

4767
3695

7.04 10- 3
3.61 x 10-3

50
15

116

G. Mosetti et al./Optimization of wind turbine positioning

simulation routines. The time needed for the optimization is about 1.25E-3 s per
configuration and wind considered on a CRAY XMP 14 which means t h a t for
the last case considered in this paper about 16000 s of cpu have been used.
However, no attempt has been made yet to optimize the software and,
therefore, a better performance could be expected by increasing the efficiency
of the windfarm evaluation routines.

6. Conclusion
A novel approach to the optimization of large wind farms has been presented.
The feasibility of the approach has been demonstrated and could be applied to
more sophisticated windfarm simulation models. In the present work only
a single turbine type has been considered with simple assumptions, but the
application of the method to more realistic problems would be straightforward
if a realistic "cost" function together with real turbine data are used.
All the optimizations have been performed starting from fully random configurations. If some "rule of thumb" is used to generate the first population, the
computational time required to reach an optimized configuration would probably be highly reduced.

Acknowledgement
This Research was made with M.U.R.S.T. 40% funding.

References
[1] I. Katic, J. Hojstrup and N.O. Jensen, A simple model for cluster efficiency, EWEC '86
Rome, Italy, 7-9 October 1986.
[2] S. Frandsen, On the wind speed reduction in the center of large clusters of wind turbines,
EWEC '91 Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
[3] P. Hajela, Genetic search - an approach to the nonconvex optimization problem, AIAA J.
28(7) (1990).
[4] J.H. Holland, Adaptation in natural and artificial systems (Univ. of Michigan Press, Ann
Arbour, 1975).
[5] L. Davis and M. Steenstrup, Genetic search and simulated annealing (Lawrence Davis
and Morgan Kauffman, Los Altos, 1987).