Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) will sponsor the new research project, GW Wakes, on offshore wind energy at the University of Oldenburg, with 3.8 million euros over the next three years.
The aim is to study the wind currents and wakes in large offshore wind farms with hundreds of plants.
The workgroup involved in the project comprises Oldenburg Physics, Member of ForWind, the Centre for Wind Energy Research of the University of Oldenburg, Bremen and Hannover and the Fraunhofer Project Group “Computational Fluid and System Dynamics” in Oldenburg and the BARD Engineering GmbH, Emden.
“GW Wakes” addresses this problem and helps improve the efficiency of wind turbines and offshore wind farms and the predictability of wind power production.
This so-called MultiLIDAR scientists measure the wind flow, turbulence and shadowing effects of wind turbines and investigate the effect of the wake flow to wind farms in the area.
They work similar to a modern ultrasound examination of the blood flow in the heart that can color the moving images.
The research project is made possible through the cooperation with BARD Engineering GmbH, which currently projects six offshore wind farms in the German Bight. BARD supports the Oldenburg scientists with extensive operational data and access to the 100 kilometers northwest of Borkum located offshore wind farm “BARD Offshore 1”. The 400-megawatt wind farm will be completed in late 2013. 80 wind turbines will provide electricity for more than 400,000 households.
“For BARD BARD Engineering and the entire group, the contents and results of the research project are essential building blocks for the design and optimization of large offshore wind farms and for the design of the next generation of future wind turbines. Therefore it is important to us to support this project active, “ explains Dr. Daniel Brickwell, sales manager of BARD Holding GmbH.
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Offshore WIND staff, December 30, 2011; Image: