Balancing energy yield and turbine fatigue: a load-aware approach to wind farm layout optimization

This study presents a multi-objective wind farm layout optimization framework that balances energy production and lifetime fatigue across the turbines in a farm. The approach employs a data-driven load surrogate model trained on extensive aero-servo-elastic simulations, capable of accurately predicting fatigue loads under free-stream, partially and fully waked conditions. Applied to an offshore wind farm with 33 IEA 22-MW turbines, the optimization generates a Pareto front that highlights possible trade-offs between energy yield and maximum lifetime damage equivalent loads. The results demonstrate that significantly improved fatigue load distributions can be achieved without compromising energy production.