Objective
To assess the potential of offshore wind energy in the European Community.
In order to make a quantitative assessment of the European Community (EC) offshore wind energy resource, 3 broad data categories are required:
long term wind speed data (mean, Weibull parameters, shear profile to estimate energy available per unit of sea area);
other environmental factors (long term and extreme wave height data, temperature, icing, etc);
siting constraints (distance to shore, mean water depth, seabed soil conditions, seabed slope, shipping lanes, military zones, maximum currents, extreme wind speed, extreme wave height, fisheries and dredging, icing, marine conservation areas, protected wrecks).
Much of these data are available from standard nautical charts, such as published by the hydrographic offices of several European countries.
It was decided to present and analyse the data using a geographical information system (GIS). GIS software enable the users to import, export, display and manipulate encoded spatial datasets such as digitized charts.
It was decided to purchase Idrisi which is the most used GIS worldwide, runs on personal computers (PC), and offers a very flexible range of modular data import export, analysis and display routines. However, rasterised datasets require large amounts of storage.
Analytical tools which are capable of investigating the effects of both wind and wave loading of offshore wind turbines have been developed. This work has involved the extension of well validated in house methods for dealing with land based machines to enable analysis of the wind turbine response due to hydrodynamic loading of the offshore support structure. 2 separate and equally important methods of analysis have been developed:
time domain analysis (A model of the complete offshore wind turbine has been developed based on a modal description of the coupled rotor tower structural dynamics. The model has now been commissioned and is in use for analysis of the extreme wave loading of the wind turbine);
frequency domain analysis (A sta ndard approach to the loading analysis of offshore structures is to model the variation of wave height for a particular sea state as a spectrum and apply this to a freqency domain representation of the structural dynamics. This approach is particulary valuable in the context of fatigue analysis of offshore structures. Development and commissioning of the frequency domain tools is almost complete).
A 2-bladed, 100 m diameter, 6 MW wind turbine for installation offshore, has been chosen as a reference wind turbine for the present project although variations on the design will be considered as the project progresses. Published details of the wind turbine design have been used to enable a models of the machine to be developed. To date this work has involved the design of the rotor geometryand structure around the data available, a modal analysis of the rotor and support structure and assembly of the data files required for loading and response analysis of the machine. Further work is required to determine realistic power train and pitch control system characteristics.
Extreme wave loads for single column and tripod support structures at 3 sites have been evaluated. At each site a maximum wave height and 3 wave periods have been considered. The extreme wave loads have been applied to the wind turbine model and the response evaluated in the time domain.
Preliminary results suggest that the loading of the rotor is largely unaffected by wave loads applied to the support structure. The loading of the support structure is, however, almost entirely associated with wave loading.
Further work is underway to investigate the extreme wave loading of the wind turbine for other wind speeds including those at which the machine is nonoperational.
The large scale exploitation of wind energy is likely to be limited by environmental constraints. It is therefore of considerable interest, particularly for densely populated European countries, to explore the possibility of offshore wind farms. Furthermore, the mean wind speeds found offshore are considerably higher than those on land and the turbulence intensity and thus the wind loads experienced by the machines are lower. The attraction of offshore wind farms is therefore both technical and environmental.
The intention of this project is to undertake an exploratory study covering the following four topics:
1) The feasibility and potential of offshore wind energy in Europe which will be summarized in an atlas.
2) To review existing information on offshore construction erection and maintenance with regard of offshore wind farm operations.
3) To provide design guidelines for offshore turbines specifically accounting for the marine environment.
4) To consider the impact of the combined wind, wave and ice loading.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries fisheries
- natural sciences computer and information sciences software
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering control systems
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences physical geography cartography geographic information systems
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels renewable energy wind energy
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
HAMBURG
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.