Use of Wind Farm Control on floating platforms for the U.S. offshore wind market, CONFLOWS

Wind energy is expected to be a major contributor to the global energy supply in the coming decades, and in many areas it is already the cheapest form of electricity generation available. Offshore wind energy is now playing a significant and rapidly increasing role in areas with suitable shallow seas. A further step to floating offshore wind turbines, which are just beginning to be installed commercially, could massively increase the potential offshore wind resource by allowing deeper sea areas to be used.

Research over many years has led to the very large, efficient and cost-effective wind turbine designs seen in today's wind farms. Much recent research has focussed on more efficient and cost-effective installation and operation of wind farms. There is serious interest in novel wind farm control strategies which can improve the operation of the wind farm as a whole, rather than just controlling each wind turbine as if it was operating in isolation from its neighbours. One strategy for example, known as 'wake steering', attempts to deflect each turbine's wake away from downstream turbines, allowing increased overall power production, and longer lifetime through reduced fatigue damage.

This study will focus on the use of wake steering in a floating offshore wind farm context. More research is required to get a deeper understanding of the wake effects, particularly in wind conditions typical of offshore environments, so that the most effective control strategies can be devised.

_DNV GL, Durham University_ and _Ocean Flow Energy_ have partnered to apply to this R&D programme in order to investigate the feasibility of this innovative control technology on floating-offshore wind farms. The main objectives of this research proposal include:

* increasing confidence in the use of wake steering,
* identifying technical challenges and advantages of using wake steering on floating offshore wind farms,
* analysing the effects of the use of wake steering using the Starfloat floating platform design as a benchmark,
* analysing the effects of the application of wake steering on the economic performance of a floating offshore wind farm.

This research will be carried out in cooperation with a US consortium, led by NREL, which has been formed to investigate similar control strategies for fixed offshore wind farms. Sharing of expertise and wind farm data will lead to improved wake modelling techniques which will help bring the technical and economic benefits of wake steering to the growing US and UK offshore wind farm markets.