Posters

Abstract

Background and Motivation The European offshore wind plans have settled the goal of 75GW of installed capacity in the North sea by 2030. The Netherlands, with a current (2021) combined capacity of 1.6 GW, has a roadmap for the Dutch offshore wind portfolio to reach in the first phase by 2023 the total installed capacity of 4.5 GW. In the second phase of the roadmap, till 2030, an additional 7.0 GW of offshore wind will be tendered to reach a total of 11.5 GW. Recently, the Dutch government has announced additional 10 GW to be realized around 2031 to reach a total installed capacity of 21 GW that would approximately generate 75% of the national electricity demand. The new zones dedicated to the development of offshore wind farms have been selected. It is clear that wind energy will be deployed more in the northerly locations, where currently no accurate data on wind conditions are available. Therefore we intend to present the new framework for long term LiDAR wind measurement in the Dutch part of the North Sea. Methodology Wind resource assessment and energy yield assessment are fundamental for the planning and the development of offshore wind farm. Therefore, accurate wind measurements condition play an essential role. In this regards, from 2014, TNO is performing for the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy long term LiDAR measurements campaign at three strategically offshore platforms in the North Sea: Lichteiland Goeree (LEG), Europlatform (EPL) and K13A. The development of future offshore wind farm in northernly area of the North Sea highlights the importance and the need of new additional locations for long term measurement campaign for wind conditions. For the selection of potential sites it is important to analyse the currently and available infrastructure and the future deployment in the North Sea. We will present an overview of the main infrastructure present available. Infrastructure in the North Sea have been assessed to select potential locations. In this assessment the following parameters were considered: existing wind farms, offshore wind farm zones by 2030 and 2050, oil and gas platforms and their decommissioning date, KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute) meteorological measurement locations. Results TNO has running a long term measurement campaign since 2014 in strategically locations, at each location TNO validates monthly the measurements and the quality checked measurements are publicly available. These measurements are used by the many developers and operators of offshore wind farms. Furthermore every year TNO reviews the annual measurements, analyzing the comparison with the three locations and with the KNMI measurements and provides an overview of the wind conditions for each location in public report published annually. Learnings Considering the different scenarios of wind energy deployment in the Dutch and international North Sea, the need of new accurate wind conditions measurements are highly valuable and needed. The importance for new measurement locations is obvious and it will help the roll out of offshore wind energy through a better understanding of the wind conditions at the North Sea.