Turbulence is one of the main drivers of fatigue in wind turbines. There is some debate on how to model the turbulence in normal wind conditions in the design phase. To address such debates, we study the fatigue load distribution and reliability following different models of the International Electrotechnical Commission 61400-1 standard. The results show the lesser importance of load uncertainty due to turbulence distribution compared to the uncertainty of material resistance and Miner’s rule.

Social aspects are gaining traction in wind energy. A recent publication by Kirkegaard et al. lays out social grand challenges. We discuss them for a more technologically focused audience. We describe the role of social sciences in wind energy research, showing insights, topics, and value-added for public engagement and planning, just ownership and value-based design. We reflect how social and technical sciences can jointly advance wind energy research into a new interdisciplinary era.

This paper investigates the effect of wind farm layout on the performance of offshore wind farms. A regular farm layout is compared to optimised irregular layouts. The irregular layouts have higher annual energy production, and the power production is less sensitive to wind direction. However, turbine towers require thicker walls to counteract increased fatigue due to increased turbulence levels in the farm. The study shows that layout optimisation can be used to maintain high-yield performance.

Wind energy will play a central role in the transition of our energy system to a carbon-free future. However, many underlying scientific issues remain to be resolved before wind can be deployed in the locations and applications needed for such large-scale ambitions. The Grand Challenges are the gaps in the science left behind during the rapid growth of wind energy. This article explains the breadth of the unfinished business and introduces 10 articles that detail the research needs.

We provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art and the outstanding challenges in wind farm flow control, thus identifying the key research areas that could further enable commercial uptake and success. To this end, we have structured the discussion on challenges and opportunities into four main areas: (1) insight into control flow physics, (2) algorithms and AI, (3) validation and industry implementation, and (4) integrating control with system design (co-design).