In the future a substantial part of new wind turbine installations are foreseen to be erected in big onshore or offshore wind farms.

This fact makes the loading and reliability of turbines operating under such conditions of particular interest. Today, the siting of wind turbines within a wind farm is based on a simplified optimization considering the power output as the objective, whereas the load aspect is treated in a rudimentary manner only, in the sense that the wind turbines are required to comply with design standards only. However, a complete optimization of design and control of these farms requires, in addition to the power production, a detailed knowledge of the loading of the individual turbines. This is not a trivial problem.

Power production and loading, related to turbines placed in a wind farm, deviates significantly from the production- and loading pattern of a similar stand-alone wind turbine subjected to an identical external wind climate. Crucial factors in this connection are the relative position of the individual wind turbines and the wind turbine control/operation strategy for the wind turbines interacting through wakes. So far, the lack of advanced tools to effectively deal with loading- and production aspects in a realistic and coherent context have limited the insight and hindered a rational optimization of wind farm layouts.
The TOPFARM project addresses optimization of wind farm topology and control strategy as based on detailed aeroelastic modeling of loads and power production in a coherent manner. The outcome of the TOPFARM project is a toolbox, consisting of advanced dynamic wake load models, power production models, cost models and control strategy models, and the synthesis of these models into an optimization tool. As not only the specific positioning of each turbine is a design variable, but also the involved control strategies, the project results are potentially applicable for both existing and planned wind farms.

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