EU ‘ToolBox’ for offshore wind

Six partners in four countries are developing a ToolBox for the integrated design and control of clusters of offshore wind farms. The partners include 3E nv/sa of Belgium, Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg – ForWind ofGermany, REpower Systems AG ofGermany,RWE Innogy GmbH ofGermany, and Imperial College London. These institutes will form a consortium running to 2016.

The ToolBox will eventually be used by offshore wind turbine manufacturers, offshore wind energy project developers and offshore wind farm operators. The solutions in the ToolBox should raise the energy yield and reduce the production costs of offshore wind energy, allowing the operation of future clusters of offshore wind farms as virtual power plants. It should also decrease the long term prediction error for energy yield in accordance with European Wind Energy Technology Platform’s 3% vision.

“The ToolBox combines different offshore wind farm design tools and integrates the intelligent control of offshore wind farm clusters at the planning stage. The design tools assist wind farm developers and manufacturers in designing cost effective wind farm and cluster layouts, electrical connection configurations and architectures, as well as wind turbine and wind farm control strategies”, said Rory Donnelly, the ClusterDesign coordinator of 3E in Belgium.

To achieve this goal, the ClusterDesign concept consists of four main elements:

Modelling – Further development of existing models that each aim at optimizing major offshore wind farm functionalities related to design and control, namely power production, mechanical loads, and ancillary services. The set of models consist of advanced wake models, wind farm electrical connection models, virtual power plant operation models, mechanical load and power performance models, and wind farm control models.

Integration – Combination of the aforementioned models in a ToolBox for integrated wind farm cluster design.

Validation – Proof and improvement of the design and control models and the ToolBox results against data measured on-site in an operating large offshore wind farm in the North Sea.

Valorisation – Transforming the results into an industrially applicable solution, thus ensuring a significant impact of the developed solutions on future offshore wind farm clusters.

“The ToolBox facilitates finding solutions that meet multiple criteria, primarily reduced costs through reduced loads, but also maximum energy extraction, reduced uncertainty of energy yield predictions, and maximum power system support capability”, concluded Rory Donnelly.