DNV issues Technical Note for turbines in tropical cyclones
By:
Tom Russell
24/09/2021
DNV
DNV has published a new
Technical Note (TN), providing principles for determining sites with extreme
wind speeds for wind farms caused by tropical cyclones. The document was
published after an industry collaboration to increase transparency and
to reduce uncertainty in the design of wind farms in emerging offshore
wind markets such as Taiwan, Japan, Korea and the US.
The TN, “Site extreme wind speeds due to tropical cyclones for wind power
plants”, is a result of a global collaborative effort from OEMs, project
developers, designers, and experts from Asia Pacific, Europe and North
America. After 18 months of work the Joint Industry Project ACE (Alleviating
Cyclone and Earthquake Challenges for Wind Farms), has been able to gather
enough experiences from cross-industry players to align wind farm design
principles for those extreme environmental conditions.
“In DNV’s latest Energy Transition Outlook report (ETO) we predict that
the share of offshore wind in total wind electricity generation will rise
to 40% in 2050," says Kim Sandgaard-Mørk, Executive Vice President
for Renewables Certification at DNV. “Especially for emerging offshore
wind markets with ambitious roadmaps, tropical cyclone loads are of critical
importance. Recent events like Hurricane Ida prove that wind farms need
to be designed for these extreme local environmental conditions to support
the plans to develop multi-megawatt offshore wind projects.”
“To grow offshore wind worldwide, the need to obtain reliable extreme
wind speeds became urgent, as sufficient long-term wind speed measurements
to estimate extreme wind speeds are hardly available onshore, and even
less for offshore sites”, explains Marcus Klose, Head of Section for
Steel Structures at DNV. “A lack of standardized approaches combined
with little industry experience leads to high uncertainty on site extreme
wind speeds. This substantially impacts the reliability and economic feasibility
of wind farm projects. All industry stakeholders acting in emerging markets
in the Asia Pacific region and the US will benefit from the guidance we
give in our Technical Note as it will help to minimize cost, warranty and
liability risks in wind farm projects.”
