An Approach to Obtain the Optimum Balance between Wind Turbine Rotor Size and Generator Power Rating to Minimize Cost of Energy

Abstract

In addition to environmental advantage of wind turbine the modern wind turbine design is aiming to become more competitive by minimizing the cost of energy (COE).When evaluating any change to the design of a wind turbine, it is critical that the designer evaluates the impact of the design change on the system cost and performance. A typical problem when starting up wind turbine design project is to determine the optimum balance between turbine power rating and the rotor size which will minimize the COE. In this article an optimization approach is adopted using COE as objective function with the rotor size and power rating as design variable. NREL (National renewable energy laboratory) cost of energy model is adopted with modifications to include the components load level effects on the COE.

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