Presentations

Abstract

Floating LiDAR measurements form the basis of bankable annual energy production (AEP) estimates, which dictate the cost of financing for offshore wind projects. AEP calculations rely on the 10-minute time series provided by the floating LiDAR buoy provider (in combination with model data). Floating LiDAR time series require some processing to accurately represent conditions at sea, and this processing is performed by the buoy providers. Exactly what processing is applied is often unknown, as buoy providers consider this information proprietary. Is a buoy provider minimally processing the data? Or are they applying additional processing and filtering of the LiDAR data to generate the final 10-minute time series? Without knowing such information, it becomes difficult to accurately assess the uncertainty of the resulting time series data that is used for AEP calculations. This study aims to uncover the LiDAR processing applied by the buoy providers and thus improve our understand of the true uncertainty of floating LiDAR time series data.