Public projects

WindOptTool- Development of an expert system for the analyses, the assessment and the optimization of the grid integration of wind-power plants

How can wind farms be developed optimally despite the enormous technical complexity? The institute EneSys of the Ruhr-University of Bochum (RUB) and the company Avasition GmbH are dealing with this question within the joint research project ‘WindOptTool’.

As one major part of the German ‘Energiewende’, the importance of the usage of wind power is increasing continuously. Wind-power plants with higher power rating and larger wind farms are realized to achieve a sustainable power supply. In this scope, an adequate and smart asset design and planning is indispensable. Due to the rising grid-integration requirements and diverse other impacts like e.g. the stochastic wind appearance and the interactions between wind-power plants, adequate design and planning is more and more challenging.

This is where the project ‘WindOptTool’ comes into. An expert system is designed in which the knowhow for all relevant components of wind farms is bundled. Based on the features of the expert system, possible critical interactions of subsystems can be identified in an early project phase. Optimization suggestions concerning the design and dimensioning of the different components can cope the identified problems. Thus, the planned and designed assets are getting more efficient, more reliant and, with this, more economically viable.
 
Within the joint research project, the institute for ‘Power Systems Technology and Power Mechatronics’ of the RUB and the company ‘Avasition GmbH’ are participating partners. The project kick-off took place at the RUB under the direction of the project coordinator Prof. Dr.-Ing. Constantinos Sourkounis on Dezember the 19th 2016. The project volume is greater than one million euro and the project duration is three years.

The joint research project is funded by the European Union and the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia within the scope of the European fond for regional development (EFRE) 2014-2020 ‘Investitionen in Wachstum und Beschäftigung’.