Affiliations: INESC-TEC Technology and Science (formerly INESC Porto, UTAD pole), Escola de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Adelaide Cerveira, INESC-TEC Technology and Science (formerly INESC Porto, UTAD pole) Escola de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, 5000-811 Vila Real, Portugal. E-mail:[email protected]
Abstract: Wind energy production have been increasing in last years, with an annual growth of the installed
capacity rate about 20%. It becomes important to develop optimization techniques to improve the effectiveness of the wind farms.
One field in which this can be done is in the distribution network design that interconnects the turbines and the substation. This paper proposes two mathematical models to obtain the optimal electrical interconnection configuration of the wind farm turbines,
considering technical constraints. One model minimizes
the installation costs and the other one minimizes the installation costs and the energy losses costs registered during the wind farm lifetime.
This problem corresponds to a capacitated minimum spanning tree with
additional constraints. The proposed models were applied in two real wind farms. A sensitivity analysis is performed over two electrical parameters, the power factor and the load factor. The results show that the electrical losses of the wind farm must be taken into account in the optimization process.
