Integrated Global Optimization Model for Electrical Cables in Offshore Wind Farms

A MILP program for integrated global optimization of electrical cables systems in Offshore Wind Farms (OWFs) is presented. Electrical cables encompass the cable layout in collection systems to interconnect Wind Turbines (WTs), and transmission systems to couple Offshore Substations (OSSs) to the Onshore Connection Point (OCP). The program is solved through a modern branch-and-cut solver, demonstrating the ability to tackle large-scale instances with hundreds of WTs and several OSSs. The model supports as objective function the initial investment plus economic losses due to total electrical power losses. The importance and functionality of incorporating electrical losses is demonstrated, along with the need to simultaneously optimize the cable layout, OSSs location, and transmission cables. The method is tested for three case studies. The results show that (i) points near the global optimum, with an imposed maximum tolerance, are calculable within reasonable computational time and effort, and (ii) the integrated model can be much more efficient than a benchmark approach based on enumeration, i.e., exhaustive evaluation of all possible optimization problems derived from unique OSSs locations.