Hurricane measurements and modeling for offshore wind farm development

A new interagency agreement between NOAA and the Department of Energy will help provide field measurements and modeling needed to design wind turbines that can survive extreme environmental conditions associated with hurricanes. Wind farms currently in the permitting and planning stages off the U. S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts are located in regions susceptible to tropical cyclones. Wind measurements gathered from 1-2 year field campaigns near the proposed wind farm locations are not long enough to capture the long term return period wind speeds needed to establish design winds. Stochastic methods currently used in the insurance industry provide a means to estimate return period wind speeds. A stochastic wind field model in concert with measured tropical cyclone wind profiles gathered by GPS sondes over the past 15 years, together with a field program component to gather detailed measurements when tropical cyclones pass near proposed wind farm areas, will help to provide more accurate information to establish risk and detailed design parameters.