Wind parameter analysis of two offshore windpark sites

Due to the shortage of suitable sites on land offshore wind farming has grown rapidly in Europe over the last decade. For the optimal siting, building and operation of these wind parks, remote sensing techniques can help in many different ways. In this study a special application of the well known wind field measurement technique based on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data is presented. SAR scenes as acquired by the European satellites ERS-2 or ENVISAT permit the estimation of 2D wind fields with a resolution of less than 1 km and a coverage of up to 500 km. With this capability SAR is an efficient instrument to obtain wind information on spatial scales relevant for offshore wind farming. In the analysis the two wind parks sites "Horns Rev" and "Butendiek" in the North Sea are compared. While "Horns Rev" is already in operation "Butendiek" is still in the planning stage. The objective is to assess the expected power yield in the new wind park in comparison to the existing wind farm. For the investigation ERS-2 image mode scenes of 100 by 100 km size were used, which are ideally suited for this application, because both wind farm sites are covered by a single scene. Scatterplots of SAR derived wind speed and wind direction obtained for both wind farms are presented and discussed