Grid optimization for offshore wind farm layout and substation location

The investment and operation costs of offshore wind farms (OWFs) are very high because the level of technology is still at an infancy stage as well as because of the marine conditions. Therefore, reducing the design costs of a power grid system for OWFs is very important for economic feasibility. In particular, optimizing the layout design of a wind farm system is needed to minimize the project cost. This study deals with an optimization programming of an electric power system layout for OWFs with offshore substation. The proposed optimization method can reduce the total layout cost lower compared with existing methods. A genetic algorithm is used as an optimization method, and an algorithm for layout optimization is presented. On the basis of this method, a case study is conducted to compare our proposed method with the existing methods by simulating a 100-MW OWF.