Turbulence over the ocean at heights relevant for modern offshore wind turbines, i.e. up to 300 m or more, is not well studied. It is important to know the properties of this turbulence because it is responsible for most of the dynamic loads on these structures, and consequently how they should be designed. This data description paper explains the efforts made to provide measurements of this offshore turbulence, using five Doppler lidars.

This editorial celebrates the 10th anniversary of Wind Energy Science, reflecting on a decade of rapid scientific progress and the journal’s role in advancing fundamental, interdisciplinary research. It highlights key developments in wind energy, the importance of open science and academia–industry collaboration, and emerging challenges such as data sharing and artificial intelligence. Above all, it honors the research community that has shaped the journal and looks ahead to the next decade.

Two major aircraft measurement campaigns above the North Sea provide insights into modifications of the wind field and sea surface induced by wind farms: The aircraft performed transects at hub height upstream and downstream of wind farm clusters, and identified different effects, e.g., how long it takes for the wind speed to recover after the wind farm, how changes across the coastline interact with wind energy, and if wind farms are well represented in numerical simulations.

Modern GW-scale offshore wind farms face challenges from atmospheric dynamics. This study examines how boundary layer height (BLH) and large-scale turbulence affect efficiency and loads. Using WRF simulations, lidar data, and CFD modeling for a 100-turbine, 15 MW wind farm at three representative sites, we show that low BLH reduces performance. Turbulence-induced low-frequency fluctuations increase fatigue loads, underscoring the need to include BLH and turbulence in design models.

In this study, we compare turbulence intensity measurements from two buoy-mounted wind lidars with data from a fixed lidar and a meteorological mast. Turbulence intensity is essential for understanding wind conditions but is often overestimated by floating systems due to wave motion. We applied a physics-based compensation to reduce these effects. Our findings show that motion compensation significantly improves accuracy, making floating lidar systems suitable for offshore wind site assessments.

Wind turbine wake modeling requires accurate representation of atmospheric conditions, especially the atmospheric boundary layer height (ABLH). Scanning lidars provide a viable solution for ABLH determination. This study assesses ABLH data from coastal and offshore scanning lidars, comparing it to ABLH derived from models typically used for wake modelling. The results demonstrate a general overestimation of the models compared to the lidar, and a bias sensitivity to the diurnal cycle.

Due to the scarcity of offshore in situ observations, alternative data sources are essential for a reliable understanding of offshore winds. Therefore, this study delves into the world of satellite remote sensing (ASCAT) and numerical models (ERA5), exploring their capabilities and limitations in characterising offshore winds. This investigation evaluates these two datasets against measurements from a floating ship-based lidar, collected during a novel measurement campaign in the Baltic Sea.

In wind energy, precise wind speed prediction at hub height is vital. Our study in the Dutch North Sea reveals that the on-site-trained random forest model outperforms the global reanalysis data, ERA5, in accuracy and precision. Trained within a 200 km range, the model effectively extends the wind speed vertically but experiences bias. It also outperforms ERA5 corrected with measurements in capturing wind speed variations and fine wind patterns, highlighting its potential for site assessment.

A neural observer is used to estimate shear and veer from the operational data of a large wind turbine equipped with blade load sensors. Comparison with independent measurements from a nearby met mast and profiling lidar demonstrate the ability of the rotor as a sensor concept to provide high-quality estimates of these inflow quantities based simply on already available standard operational data. 

Inflow wind field measurements from nacelle-based lidar systems offer great potential for different applications including turbine control, load validation and power performance measurements. On floating wind turbines nacelle-based lidar measurements are affected by the dynamic behavior of the floating foundations. Therefore, the effects on lidar wind speed measurements induced by floater dynamics must be well understood. A new model for quantification of these effects is introduced in our work.

A proper development of offshore wind farms requires the accurate description of atmospheric phenomena like low-level jets. In this study, we evaluate the capabilities and limitations of numerical models to characterize the main jets' properties in the southern Baltic Sea. For this, a comparison against ship-mounted lidar measurements from the NEWA Ferry Lidar Experiment has been implemented, allowing the investigation of the model's capabilities under different temporal and spatial constraints.