NORCOWE to Scrutinize Offshore Wind at FINO1

Norwegian Centre for Offshore Wind Energy (NORCOWE) is starting up an extensive offshore measurement campaign at the German research platform FINO1 close to Alpha Ventus wind farm.

The campaign will take place from May 2015 to June 2016, and is carried out by CMR and UIB in close cooperation with the other NORCOWE partners, FuE-Zentrum FH Kiel, Fraunhofer IWES, RAVE and ForWind. Benny Svardal at Christian Michelsen Research is responsible for the project management.

The key purpose of the campaign is to improve knowledge of the marine boundary layer stability, air-sea interaction and offshore wake propagation effects. The collected observational data will be used to validate and improve numerical models and tools for i.e. weather forecasting, marine operations, power performance and wind farm layout.

Additionally, the campaign scope will cover research on motion correction techniques for floating sensor platforms.

In order to provide unique data sets for the study of boundary layer stability in undisturbed offshore conditions, simultaneous measurements of wind, temperature and humidity profiles will be performed in the MABL. By employing microwave radiometer and lidar remote sensing technology, NORCOWE is able to map the boundary layer conditions continuously up to an altitude of 1000m.

To investigate the atmospheric stability around the wind farm, as well as the interaction of the Alpha Ventus wind turbines with the atmosphere and each other, NORCOWE plans to install two scanning lidar systems and a microwave-radiometer on the research platform. This is the first time that such an instrument is installed at an offshore location. Both the Lidar systems and the radiometer are able to perform continuous measurements up to an altitude of 1000 m.

In addition to the meteorological measurements from the FINO 1 platform, and the floating lidar buoy measurements provided by IWES, oceanographic instruments will be deployed near FINO1 for a shorter period. This instrumentation, mounted on bottom frames, submerged buoys, and the autonomous SailBuoy, will monitor wave statistics, surface currents and turbulence in the upper oceanic mixed layer. The collection of these data is crucial for studying air-sea exchange processes, which are known to influence the structure of the vertical wind profile and the atmospheric stability.

The deployed instrumentation will provide a highly versatile data set for investigation of the offshore wind profiles, wind shear and turbulence intensity as a function of atmospheric stability in and around the wind farm. The gathered data opens for the investigation of the structure, extension, dynamics and persistence of single turbine wakes and the near farm wake of Alpha Ventus.

Source: NORCOWE