Optimization tool for offshore wind farm in Mediterranean area

Nowadays decarbonisation process and clean energy expansion are in full development era and increasing trend for future are encouraging. Through the numerous typologies of renewable technologies offshore wind has been estimated to have good opportunity of increasing in gross installed power for its large potential, possibility of exploit large maritime areas and cost that are in decreasing trend. All these advantages place this technology in a relevant role for worldly energy market share, not only for electric energy perspective, but with more innovative utilisation in green H2 production or Power-to-X. Offshore wind farms nowadays are mostly located in China and Northern Europe countries but most exploitable areas such as Mediterranean basin see more difficulties in development of this technology because of economic and technological issues. However already presented projects are numerous and investments of countries facing Mediterranean will guide spreading of this renewable in the area, among countries that have already a renewable program and countries that rely still on conventional energy sources to “clean” their energy mix. This thesis work claims to investigate, through a specifically designed tool in Python language, the optimization of a floating offshore wind farm in Mediterranean basin with the aim of help spreading offshore wind projects in the area where this technology is unexploited. The objective is to provide an overview of the possible ideal configuration of the wind turbine farm, the energy balance, and the costs that will be faced, taking into account some constraints selectable by the final user. The tool has been created and carried on internally at research center in MOREenergy Lab. Reached results demonstrate that tool is accurate and can firstly simulate, through fluid dynamic and economical models, and then optimize a wind farm for chosen position in Mediterranean basin. Numerical results, obtained through a case study of a 900 MW farm located 10 km from the coast, show for optimized farms better performance in terms of annual produced energy with less wake effects and an improvement in economic indicators (-3% of LCOE from 104.9 to 101.8 €/MWh) following also minor Capex costs that lead to better investments. On the other hand a visual impact larger reduction, (-46% passing from 171.3 to 92.8 〖cm〗^2 ) measured in occupied horizon area, visible from nearest coast can improve social acceptance. Finally, the economic model validation and the evaluation of optimization tool through a convergence study are done. The presented work has the potential to significantly increase the sustainability and economic viability of wind energy projects. It also evidence limits in utilisation of this instrument for example in restricted grid resolution to let user better understand how much simulations are reliable. This approach has the potential to significantly increase the sustainability and economic viability of wind energy project towards the untapped Mediterranean basin.