severe weather impacts complex offshore wind farm operations vattenfall

How much impact does weather have on an offshore wind farm?

Weather Impacts to Offshore Wind

Weather plays an important role in the operations and maintenance of offshore wind farms, particularly as it determines when you can access the turbines, so all sides of operation will need accurate, continuous weather information.

Weather also determines what kind of output you get from the turbines. If there’s a lot of wind, you get more energy output than if there’s less wind, which means you will likely want to do maintenance when the winds are low to minimize downtime. This is also when it’s easiest and safest to access the turbines.

What StormGeo can do to optimize offshore wind farm operations

Our weather forecasting system for offshore wind has now been developed over 10 years and I think it’s unrivalled. It gives exact metocean characteristics of the wind farm area to help wind operators gain accurate estimates of wind power production.

We have received really good feedback from wind farm owners, grid operators, and power traders on the service — the usability, the quality of the forecasts — so I feel confident in the services we provide.

 

This article is part 1 of the series Optimizing wind farm operations with accurate weather forecasts

Image credit: Vattenfall