About this Research Topic
Offshore wind energy development is accelerating around the world. As turbines grow in size and the wind farms clusters also expand, the science and technology developed earlier for smaller turbines and onshore wind farms must innovate to address the relevant atmospheric and ocean wave conditions. By addressing the unique challenges of the offshore environment, new science and technology, for both measurement and modeling aspects, will emerge to support offshore wind energy applications.
The unique characteristics of offshore environments introduces challenges in both the development of measurement and modeling for wind energy. New technologies and a changing climate trigger the need for robust and accurate measurements. Existing in-situ offshore measurements of winds, turbulence and temperature stratification are sparse and costly. Remote sensing measurements face challenges in precision or in interpretation, such as turbulence metrics from buoy-based lidars. The synergy between atmosphere-ocean models and remote sensing can further contribute to improving our understanding of the physical conditions in the surrounding of the offshore wind farms. Over the ocean, our knowledge of applying measurements and modeling for wind energy application is complicated by e.g. coastal atmospheric and wave processes and special weather features such as fronts, tropical cyclones and organized structures such as open cells, Low Level Jets, boundary-layer rolls and special regional phenomena such as Mistrals and Bora. With the development of turbines (fixed and floating) whose rotor top reaches 200 - 300 meters, and the expansion of offshore wind farm clusters, whose horizontal extent can span hundreds of kilometers, the use of typical turbulence models is questionable. The situation is further complicated by the presence of the new “landscape”: these large offshore wind farm clusters. The corresponding knowledge of wind, wave and turbulence is relevant for wind resource, design, operation and maintenance, forecasting and power balancing etc.
This Research Topic includes, but is not limited to, topics such as:
· Offshore wind energy: resource, design, O&M, forecasting etc.,
· Offshore wind farms: optimization, wakes etc.,
· Wind-wave coupled modeling,
· Investigation of offshore weather events,
· Offshore coastal processes,
· Climatological and extreme atmosphere and wave conditions,
· Climate change impacts,
· Turbulence,
· Offshore measurements: data collection,
· Offshore measurements: development of techniques such as remote sensing, floating devices.
The unique characteristics of offshore environments introduces challenges in both the development of measurement and modeling for wind energy. New technologies and a changing climate trigger the need for robust and accurate measurements. Existing in-situ offshore measurements of winds, turbulence and temperature stratification are sparse and costly. Remote sensing measurements face challenges in precision or in interpretation, such as turbulence metrics from buoy-based lidars. The synergy between atmosphere-ocean models and remote sensing can further contribute to improving our understanding of the physical conditions in the surrounding of the offshore wind farms. Over the ocean, our knowledge of applying measurements and modeling for wind energy application is complicated by e.g. coastal atmospheric and wave processes and special weather features such as fronts, tropical cyclones and organized structures such as open cells, Low Level Jets, boundary-layer rolls and special regional phenomena such as Mistrals and Bora. With the development of turbines (fixed and floating) whose rotor top reaches 200 - 300 meters, and the expansion of offshore wind farm clusters, whose horizontal extent can span hundreds of kilometers, the use of typical turbulence models is questionable. The situation is further complicated by the presence of the new “landscape”: these large offshore wind farm clusters. The corresponding knowledge of wind, wave and turbulence is relevant for wind resource, design, operation and maintenance, forecasting and power balancing etc.
This Research Topic includes, but is not limited to, topics such as:
· Offshore wind energy: resource, design, O&M, forecasting etc.,
· Offshore wind farms: optimization, wakes etc.,
· Wind-wave coupled modeling,
· Investigation of offshore weather events,
· Offshore coastal processes,
· Climatological and extreme atmosphere and wave conditions,
· Climate change impacts,
· Turbulence,
· Offshore measurements: data collection,
· Offshore measurements: development of techniques such as remote sensing, floating devices.
Keywords: offshore wind energy, air-sea interaction, offshore modeling, measurements, offshore coastal processes, theory meeting application, remote sensing
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