Otimização do cabeamento interconector de aerogeradores em parques eólicos offshore

Abstract

The increase in the demand for electric energy and the search for different energetic matrices in the world scope, instigated the use of clean sources of energy. In this context, offshore wind energy is constantly growing. Compared to other generation sources and mainly related to onshore wind power, the cost of wind generation offshore is higher, this fact is due to the cost with turbine infrastructure, park layout, interconnection cabling and connection to the grid, operation and maintenance. The layout of the offshore wind farm represents 15 to 30 % of the total investment, playing an important role in the cost of installation capital. Aiming to reduce the cost of implementing this energy source, this work presents a methodology for the design of the windfarm electric collector system offshore based on the combination of ant colony optimization with the traveling salesman problem. In order to validate the implemented method, three test systems were used: North Hoyle, Gunfl eet Sands 1 and 2 and London Array. For all systems, successes have been achieved in cable length reductions. In the first case, the current cabling length is 18 km and, after optimization, a reduction of 20.06 %. In the second scenario, with the actual length of the cabling equal to 36 km, the reduction was 21.78 % and, therefore, in the largest studied park, the reduction was 15.78 %, reducing from 209 km to 178.12 km. In all cases, cost data for interconnection cables were taken into account, where the driver’s section of the North Hoyle park is 185 mm2, with a cost equivalent to US$258.460,00/km. For the Gun fl eet Sands 1 and 2 and London Array parks, the cross sections of the cables correspond to 150 mm2, whose value is US$233.800,00/km. In this way, the reductions, in dollars, of the costs of implementations of the real topologies and those presented in this work were also presented.