Multi-criteria assessment of offshore wind turbine support structures based on dynamic property optimization

Increasing size of wind turbine and deep water deployment have raised the issue of appropriate selection of the most suitable support structure to make offshore wind energy cost competitive. The paper presents an optimization methodology for decision making process of bottom mounted supports of offshore wind turbines (OWTs) through reasonable engineering attributes derivation. Mathematic models of support structures are reduced by the generalized single-degree-of-freedom theory with relatively fewer structural parameters. Soft-stiff design optimization based on dynamic properties of OWTs is performed for monopile and lattice supports with different wind turbines, water depth and hub height. Attributes of support structures, wind turbines and environment conditions are applied in the multi-criteria decision making method-TOPSIS for benchmarking of those options. The results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed optimazation methodology combined with economical and environmental attributes together. ©, 2014, Inst. of Scientific and Technical Information of China. All right reserved.