Techno-Economic Design of Wind Farms: A Methodology and Multi-Scenario Application

This paper aims to present a methodology and multi-scenario application for the techno-economic assessment of the wind turbine layout in a wind farm. The considered decisional variables deal with the number of wind turbines to install, their self-distance and their distance toward the primary grid line. In addition, the wind speed profile and the site boundary environmental conditions are within the methodology. The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and the net present value (NPV) are estimated as the key results and decisional indicators to compare multiple scenarios within two relevant locations in the Middle East (a case study of Abadan site in Iran) and the Mediterranean region (a case study of Swatar site in Malta). Finally, for each site, an effective layout of the wind farm is selected. Numerical results lead to the optimum layout with the lowest cost of energy. Swatar site has the highest potential of wind for the energy production. The LCOE for this site is estimated to be 4.01 c€/kWh for a wind farm with a size of 10 MW and 5.76 c€/kWh for a wind farm with size of 25 MW. Overall, it is shown that the wind power fosters sustainable development in both case studies and the proposed structures and layouts increase the performances of the wind farms, considerably.