EuroWindWakes research project

Project title: EuroWindWakes: Multiscale Modeling of European Wind Energy Wake Effects

Summary:

• The planned dense development of offshore wind farms in the North Sea will make wake effects and the global blockage effect more important for calculating electricity yields. Current models only depict this with great uncertainty.
• The international research project EuroWindWakes aims to significantly reduce these uncertainties by improving and validating the methods, thus enabling optimized maritime spatial planning and reliable power generation forecasts. This includes the wake effects for the entire North Sea.

Contents and methodology:

Wakes and the global blockage effect can significantly reduce electricity yields due to increased turbulence and reduced wind speeds.

The models currently used to calculate electricity yields can only depict these effects with great uncertainty. These uncertainties can have a significant impact on both the economic benefit due to an overall reduction in electricity generation and the economic profitability due to overly optimistic bids in the tenders for offshore areas.

The aim is to reduce the prediction uncertainty from 20 to 30 percent to less than 10 percent. To achieve this goal, the cooperation partners from Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands will improve and validate modeling approaches for wake effects on a European scale. Recommendations for action derived from the results are made available to all relevant stakeholders via the industry partners involved in the project.

In addition, EuroWindWakes will help to create an important hub for the emerging European Center of Excellence for Wind Energy, an initiative of the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA JP Wind).