Global Blockage Effect Campaign Continues as Major Players Join In

The measurement campaign for the Global Blockage Effect in Offshore Wind (OWA GloBE) project, a joint industry project organised under the Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA), has been extended by four months, after being launched last year.

The OWA GloBE project is led by RWE with support from the Carbon Trust as part of the Offshore Wind Accelerator programme.

Since the launch of the project in February 2021, the project has attracted Ocean Winds, Ørsted, The Crown Estate, and TotalEnergies, increasing the total budget from EUR 3.9 million to EUR 5.9 million, including in-kind contributions.

The OWA GloBE project aims to reduce the commercial uncertainty around the modelling of the GBE, a phenomenon that occurs as a complex interaction between the wind farm and the atmosphere as the wind flows through, over and around large offshore wind farms.

According to the Carbon Trust, having an insight into the true impact of GBE is commercially relevant as uncertainty in wind turbine and wind farm performance drives a high cost of capital for offshore sites. Any overestimation of the GBE leads to the devaluation of offshore wind projects.

The project focuses on creating a comprehensive dataset that can be used as the industry benchmark for assessing and quantifying the impact of the GBE on energy production.

The measurement campaign started at RWE’s offshore wind farms Amrumbank West and Nordsee Ost in the North Sea in September 2021. The two wind farms are separated by a strip of empty sea approximately four kilometres wide, in which RWE is currently constructing its Kaskasi offshore wind farm.

Seven scanning Light Detection and Ranging systems (LiDARs) have already been deployed and commissioned on turbine transition pieces on the test site in the “Kaskasi gap” to detect and quantify GBE both within and between offshore wind farms.

In addition, a floating LiDAR has been deployed in the sea west of the wind farms to measure the undisturbed wind.

The measurement campaign will finish in May and will be followed by analysis, modelling, validation and reporting, to conclude the overall project by the end of 2022.  

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