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Wind Farm Design Offshore

Designing an offshore wind farm is a staged process involving:

• Data-gathering;
  
• Preliminary design and feasibility study;
  
• Site investigation;
  
• Concept development and selection;
  
• Value engineering;
  
• Specification; and
• Detailed design.
  

Close interaction throughout the design process is required, including interaction about the grid connection arrangements and constraints introduced through the consenting process.  Key aspects of the design, and the process of arriving at that design, are described in the following sections.

The capital cost of offshore projects differs markedly from those onshore, with perhaps 50  per cent of the capital cost being due to the non-turbine elements, compared to less than 25 per cent in onshore projects.  Figure 5.2 shows a typical breakdown of cost for an offshore wind farm.

 

Figure 5.2: Capital Cost Breakdown for a Typical Offshore Wind Farm