Introduction

During the preliminary design of a wind turbine, the question is raised about what shall be the best design. The term optimum design is widely used expression which can go from overall system level down to each minor component in subassembly. In this article an approach is presented to determine the optimum wind turbine configuration taking COE as objective of the optimization.
The NREL has developed a cost model based on market survey and financial data in addition to the expectation of the turbine size for the planned wind turbine [1]. That model was recursively updated and the latest update was presented in 2013 [2]. There were some trials to define an approach to optimize the wind turbine design [3] but it was mainly dedicated to the rotor with intensive investigation to the rotor performance and aero- elastic modelling of the blade without considering the rest of turbine components.

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