The Effect of Acceleration Coefficients in Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm with Application to Wind Farm Layout Design

Wind energy has become a strong alternative to traditional sources of energy. One important decision for an efficient wind farm is the optimal layout design. This layout governs the placement of turbines in a wind farm. The inherent complexity involved in this process results in the wind farm layout design problem to be a complex optimization problem. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm has been effectively used in many studies to solve the wind farm layout design problem. However, the impact of an important set of PSO parameters, namely, the acceleration coefficients, has not received due attention. Considering the importance of these parameters, this paper presents a preliminary analysis of PSO acceleration coefficients using the conventional and a modified variant of PSO when applied to wind farm layout design. Empirical results show that the acceleration coefficients do have an impact on the quality of final layout, resulting in better overall energy output.