TGS has completed a two-year regional wind and metocean data collection campaign along the US East Coast, which it claims is the largest to date in the region.
It involved deploying and simultaneously operating five offshore LiDAR buoys covering a near-600 km area from Massachusetts to the Virginia/North Carolina border.
Data collected at each site included wind speed and direction across a range of turbine hub heights, wave heights and ocean current data across the full water column.
Four of the five buoys were fitted with in-air acoustic recording devices to monitor bird and bat activity, seabed-mounted sensors to measure additional metocean parameters, and whale and porpoise acoustic monitors to identify marine mammal vocalizations.
TGS used the collected data to bias-correct its high-resolution Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model simulations. Developers are using the measurement and NWP model data to support their bid preparations for BOEM’s forthcoming Central Atlantic offshore wind lease auction.
The LiDAR data are said to show substantially different wind speeds compared to prior wind modeling studies. Average LiDAR data availability was 94% at a 140-m measurement height.
The combined measurement campaign and its baseline model derivatives should be relevant to wind resource analysis for future lease sales and project construction over the next 15 years, TGS added.
