In a case study of the Gwynt-y-mor offshore windfarm, the software was able to realize savings of £2.2 million ($2.9 million), or 3 percent of the installed cable cost. The KLOC software was highly commended at the IET Innovation Awards in 2016.
Kinewell Energy Managing Director, Andrew Jenkins, said, “We have developed our world leading inter-array cable layout optimization solution into a licensed product following requests from clients. This enables clients to harness the power of the KLOC software in-house. We are thankful to the recently launched National Innovation Centre for Data (NICD) hosted at Newcastle University for their support during this development.”
The KLOC software rapidly designs an economically optimized inter-array cable layout design for an offshore wind farm based on the locational and cost data it is presented with. The software appropriately prioritizes the optimization of capital cost against operational costs such as electrical distribution losses and unavailability losses due to cable faults.
In addition to the value generated through a single run of the KLOC engine, further value can be achieved by using the multi-run functionality which is possible due to the software’s speed. A multi-run can determine cost sensitives using automated incremental changes to input data on each run. For example, KLOC can model numerous alternative substation locations around the development area, developing an inter-array layout at each location. In this way, the locations of the substations themselves can be optimized.
Similarly, any input data can be varied and thus KLOC can determine the cost sensitivities of using different turbine types, different sets of cable types, operating voltage, the cost of capital, and different installation methodologies in each area of the development site, amongst others.
Andrew added “Prior to the availability of the KLOC software, such optimized inter-array cost sensitivity analysis was not possible due to the prohibitive time and cost of undertaking such a calculation.”
Although the KLOC software has been developed around offshore wind, it has numerous other applications. It can be used for large solar, wave and tidal energy projects.
