Uncertainty Model of Wind Farms

The EUROS Workpackage Uncertainty model of wind farms in a nutshell

We can characterize the life-time economic performance of a wind farm by the cost of energy, the ratio of the total costs and the total energy production. So we want to minimize the relative costs for installation, operations, maintenance, and decommissioning while maximizing the farm’s relative energy production. Before and during a wind farm’s life-time, many factors—such as component reliability, atmospheric conditions, and model parameters—make us uncertain about the cost of energy. We have limited knowledge about these uncertainties and how specifically they affect the cost of energy. We create a conceptual overview of off-shore wind farms that shows the relationships between all the factors contributing to our uncertainty. We use it to study the effects of these factors and so try to uncover which have the largest impact. For important factors, we combine the state-of-the-art in mathematical modeling of wind farms and uncertainty propagation to both reduce our uncertainty where possible, or get a clear view on it otherwise. This will lead to a reduction in the necessary safety margins and therefore to less costly off-shore wind farms. It will also lead to more confident energy output estimates, which can reduce the borrowing costs for the construction of off-shore wind farms.