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Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration (OC3)
Background Scope Approach/Phases Collaboration
SUBTASK
2
OFFSHORE WIND – TECHNICAL RESEARCH FOR DEEPER WATER (> 30m)
All of the significant experience with offshore wind turbine foundations
and support structures has been with either monopiles or gravity based
foundations in water depths less than 30-metres. Some member countries
are interested in alternative technology applications that will allow
turbines to be placed in water depths greater than 30 m because they do
not have abundant sites with shallow water (e.g. Japan, Italy, Spain,
Ireland, Portugal, UK, and the USA), and some countries may be interested
in deeper sites to mitigate potential visual impacts from the coastlines.
To successfully deploy wind turbines in these depths, alternative fixed-bottom
support structures or floating platforms may be necessary.
There is no significant offshore wind industry experience with floating
platforms yet. The oil and gas industries, however, have deployed thousands
of floating oil-drilling platforms in depths up to 2-kilometers. Drawing
from this experience, the wind industry can develop floating platforms
by building on these offshore technologies but the costs must be reduced
substantially. Some of the proposed R&D work that may be considered
for alternative platforms and structures are:
• Development of low cost anchoring and moorings systems suitable
for offshore wind installations in varying water depths.
• Optimization studies to determine lowest-cost options for floating
platforms.
• Coupled platform dynamic modeling – understanding research
requirements.
• Exchange data on manufacturing and materials benefits arising
from floating platform requirements.
• Share experience and technical data pertaining to marine ecology,
regulatory requirements, and permits in deep water and installations far
from shore.
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Past
Meetings
Minutes available under Documents |
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Meeting 1
Washington D.C., USA
October 2004
Coupled turbine/substructure dynamic modeling - A Kick-off meeting
was held. Representatives from Denmark, Japan, Norway, the United
Kingdom, and the United States attended. The October meeting attracted
32 participants from 8 countries. To maximize the benefit to the
research community and to take advantage of experience with current
turbine modeling effort in shallow water, it was decided to include
both shallow and deep-water modeling.
Uncertainties associated with load prediction increase the risk
for offshore machines, and the development of accurate dynamic models
for load prediction is the best way to reduce these uncertainties.
Participants will share their codes among the other participants
and compare assumptions, model fidelity, and the results of model
outputs for controlled cases determined by the group. Through this
type of rigorous sharing and subsequent validation efforts, offshore
researchers will accelerate the development of codes for modeling
a wide range of offshore wind turbines systems.
Meeting 2
Risø, Denmark
January 2005
A research topic “Coupled turbine/substructure dynamic modeling”
was discussed and targeted for detailed collaborations and planning.
Meeting 3
Trondheim, Norway
June
2005
Meeting 4
Risø, Denmark
October
2005
Meeting 5
Philadelphia, USA
June 2006
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