Located 25km off the coast of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Hywind Scotland became operational in 2017
Image: Drone photo of the Hywind Scotland floating wind farm. Photo: courtesy of Øyvind Gravås / Woldcam - Equinor ASA.
Equinor and Masdar have entered into an agreement with UK-based Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult to share Hywind Scotland floating wind farm data to supply chain businesses and academia.
Located 25km off the coast of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Hywind Scotland became operational in 2017.
The data will be made available using ORE Catapult’s platform for operational data (POD) service.
Equinor floating wind development head Sebastian Bringsvaerd said: “This initiative shows Equinor’s strong commitment to support dissemination and education in the UK and abroad, as well as providing a platform for collaboration across the floating wind supply chain.
“Floating offshore wind is a corner stone in our renewable strategy to become an offshore wind major and we believe this technology will play a key role in delivering the UK’s Sector Deal and decarbonisation goals.”
The Norwegian energy company said that the agreement will improve their understanding of how offshore wind farms function in real-world conditions and support innovative research, projects and product development.
What the POD offers to subscribers
Under the agreement, subscribers of the POD can access a pre-defined set of full-scale measurements from one of wind farm’s five turbines.
The data will include environmental data, motions of the floating wind turbine and loads in the mooring system.
The main objective is to reduce the cost of floating offshore wind, making the technology a cost competitive industrial solution.
ORE Catapult operational performance director Chris Hill said: “The inclusion of free to use operational data from Hywind Scotland will be a great addition to our POD service, and greatly enhance our offering to our users.
“Big data is transforming our understanding of how wind farms work, and therefore our approach to building, operating and maintaining them.
“Our POD service was the first to offer, for a nominal charge, open access data sets from our operational offshore turbine based at Levenmouth for the benefit of the wider industry, academic and research communities and we hope to expand the data sets available in the future.”