Patent ID: 8554519

Claim:
A method for optimizing the layout of turbines on a grid, said grid representing a land parcel, to maximize energy yield produced by the turbines comprising: a) receiving wind data for each possible location of placement of a turbine on said grid; b) calculating an energy yield for a given layout of turbines on said grid as a nonlinear objective function, said function constrained by said wind data; c) implementing a bounding heuristic, said bounding heuristic comparing said calculated energy yield for said given layout of turbines to a current lower bound, and if said calculated energy yield is greater than the current lower bound, replacing the current lower bound with the calculated energy yield; and d) repeating steps a to c for different layouts of turbines on the grid, wherein the objective function computes the energy yield for the given layout according to: max ⁢ ⁢ P ′ = ∑ p ⁢ ⁢ { x p * ∑ wdir ⁢ ⁢ { P ⁢ ⁢ 0 wdir * ( 1 - ∑ pi ∈ I p , wdir ⁢ ⁢ ( x pi * δ ⁢ ⁢ V wdir , pi , p 2 ) ) 3 } } wherein P′=power, p=a location on the grid, x p =0 or 1, wdir=wind direction, P 0 wdir=power produced by turbine at location p due to wind from wind direction wdir in the absence of wake interference from other turbines, pi=ith element of set I, xpi=0 or 1, and δV=wind deficit; and, wherein a programmed processing unit performs said receiving, calculating, and implementing for each of said different turbine layouts.