Mitigation of Lightning Hazards at the More Sensitive Points in Wind Farms Using Ant-Colony Optimization Technique

Abstract

The lightning energy can be very harmfull to the wind turbine farm components. This paper attempts to evaluate the overvoltages at the sensitive points in wind farm, using ATP-EMTP package program. Four cases were performed; a) the transient voltage distribution in the insulating layer of the control line, b) the transient voltage on the control equipment, c) the coupling voltage between the tower and the control, and, d) the transient voltage distribution in the wind turbine WT generator, boast transformers and grid. These cases were performed under different lightning current conditions and at conventional design and proper design of grounding system. The results show that the ground potential rise (GPR) is reduced with using the proper design of wind turbine ground system, but the induced voltage at the control system will not affected. This work determines the optimum location of wind turbine at the areas of maximum lightning incidence. Ant colony optimization (ACO) technique is implemented to find the optimum wind farm location. This work enhances the protection strategy of the wind farms against lightning stroke.

Sensitivity of shortest distance search in the ant colony algorithm with varying normalized distance formulas

“…Ant algorithm variations starting from the first version are called ant system (AS), which is applied to TSP, elitist ant system (EAS), rank-based ant system (ASrank), min-max ant system (MMAS), ant colony system (ACS), approximate nondeterministic tree search (ANTS) and hyper-cube framework for ACO [11], [12]. Ant colony algorithm can be used in various disciplines, one of which is Abd-Allah et al [13] ptimizing with ant colony in lightning hazard mitigation at more sensitive points in wind farms and getting results can contribute 1252 in designing the best place for wind farms and can increase capital on protection from lightning in certain areas. Meanwhile Sulaima et al [14] adopted a load transfer strategy for manufacturing electricity consumers in connection with the consideration of setting ETOU tariffs by utilizing ant colony and resulting in the impact of reducing energy costs by 1% to 6% achieved during medium peak segmentation, while peak time segments contributed to cost reduction about 0.5% to 5% are congruent.…”