Techno-Economical Optioneering of Offshore Wind Farms Electrical Systems

The analysis techniques for assessing the suitability of various layouts for wind farm electrical systems have received a good deal of attention recently. They are becoming increasingly more adapted to various stages of the development. This paper aims to present a techno-economical optioneering technique suitable for application at early stages of the project development for offshore wind farms and to discuss implementation specific issues. The technique, based on calculating traditional initial capital costs equivalents of losses caused by a particular selection of the design, is open for extension when lifecycle costs are combined with estimates of the installed costs. The work discusses aspects of this combination and comments results obtained when it is applied on transmission to onshore sub-systems of the offshore wind farms electrical systems.