AbstractsPhysics

The offshore wind energy is gaining more and more importance in the scenario of the European renewable energies. Due to high costs of installation and maintenance, it is important to have a good assessment of the wind speed profile. The wind speed at the turbine hub level is used for energy yield evaluations and the knowledge of the wind shear helps estimating turbine structure loads. The wind speed profile in a marine environment is investigated using the data provided from the German offshore research platform FINO-1, the meteorological mast of the Dutch offshore wind park Egmond aan Zee and the weather forecast model COSMO-EU of the Deutscher Wetterdienst DWD. The data are compared to the Monin-Obukhov Similarity Theory using the Richardson Bulk Method, the Richardson Gradient Method and the Profile Methods. The results show that the models do not predict the wind speed profile well and large scatter is present. The weather forecast model COSMO-EU for offshore wind energy purposes is validated using FINO-1 measurements and the results are promising.