Fraunhofer IWES Studying German Bight Offshore Wind Clusters

Fraunhofer IWES has commenced a project focused on investigating how the wind conditions in the German Bight could change if offshore wind farms are expanded on a large scale.

The X-Wakes “Interaction Between the Wakes of Large Offshore Wind Farms and Wind Farm Clusters With the Marine Atmospheric Boundary Layer” research project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) to the tune of EUR 3.4 million over a period of three years.

According to Fraunhofer IWES, the team will use data from measurement campaigns and high-fidelity modeling approaches to improve industry models that are used to analyze the impact of the cluster expansions.

Stationary measurements at different locations in the German Bight, e.g. on wind turbines, converter stations and the FINO long-term measurements deliver meteorological data continuously and the extent of the wakes is analyzed on a large scale with the aid of satellite-based remote sensing data, the institute said.

“In our X-Wakes research project, we want to investigate these wakes and other accumulative effects such as the global blockage effect in more detail and discover how the wind farm clusters influence each other as well as what consequences a large-scale expansion of the offshore wind farm would have on wind conditions in the future,” said Project Coordinator Dr. Martin Dörenkämper of the Fraunhofer IWES.

“We hope to use the data gathered during the project to further develop our existing models in order to be able to predict the yields of the wind farms for future expansion scenarios under realistic conditions.”

In addition to Fraunhofer IWES, research partners include TU Braunschweig, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the University of Oldenburg with the ForWind  – Center for Wind Energy Research, the University of Tübingen, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht Center for Materials and Coastal Research, and UL International GmbH.

The project consortium is supported by associated partners innogy, Vattenfall, RWE Renewables, Nordsee One GmbH, and Tennet TSO, who are providing data and access to their offshore infrastructure for measurements.