Posters

Abstract

Floating LIDAR Systems (FLS) have become the industry standard for collecting metocean measurements. Unfortunately, their application is limited by excessively high measurement uncertainties applied to the wind speed data used for wind resource and energy yield assessments. This is largely driven by the practice of comparing FLS to cup anemometers during the performance verification process and the conservative application of classification uncertainty. Although uncertainty values have reduced as the technology has matured, we are still commonly seeing uncertainty levels exceeding 3% applied to multi-year wind resource campaigns measured from best-in-class stage 3 FLS. This has trickle down effects as it impacts a project's uncertainty budget and ability to secure preferred project financing. Following presentation of a reconciliation method, first presented by Copenhagen Offshore Partners during the WindEurope Tech Conference in 2023, ERM commenced a Joint Industry Project (JIP) to examine FLS uncertainty using actual offshore measurement data. As the use of an evidence-based approach gained interest, further offshore wind developers have shared data with ERM. An assessment in the Dutch North Sea region was previously shown by ERM at the WindEurope Technology Conference in 2024, and now ERM is ready to share results based on multiple concurrent measurements in Republic of Korea. In the Dutch North Sea study, ERM demonstrated the reliability of FLS measurements compared with mast measurements by analysing relative deviations from mesoscale maps. ERM considered 12 FLS based datasets, 2 fixed LiDAR datasets and 11 met mast-based datasets from the region. ERM has now created a methodology to produce another evidence-based assessment of measurement uncertainty using data from the Republic of Korea. ERM also discuss the importance of an evidence-based approach in considering two significantly different geographies and what that could mean for project development and ultimately the cost of finance.