Feasibility Study of using a LiDAR in the complex flowfield of an offshore platform, to measure wind shear profile.

Offshore wind is the major growth area in the wind industry sector today. However, there remains a key, fundamental missing element - a thorough understanding of the offshore wind climatology and likely wind resource. In 2008 the EU FP7 funded project NORSEWInD was created with a remit to deliver offshore wind speed data at a nominal project hub height acquired in offshore locations in the North, Baltic and Irish seas. Part of the overall NORSEWInD project was the use of LiDAR remote sensing (RS) systems mounted on offshore platforms to measure wind velocity profiles at a number of locations offshore. The data acquired from the offshore RS measurements was fed into a large and novel wind speed dataset suitable for use by the wind industry. The data was also fed into key areas such as forecasting and MESOSCALE modelling improvements. One significant problem identified was the effect of platform interference effects on the RS data. Therefore, part of the fundamental research incorporated into the NORSEWInD project was an investigation into the possible extent and effect of the interference on the measured data from the various mounting platforms. This paper reports on the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling of the wind flows over the platforms and the verification of the CFD models by the use of sub scale wind tunnel models employing three dimensional Constant Temperature Anemometers (CTAs) to measure local velocity vector data