[...]
It's not hard to guess why the North Sea has been chosen. It's one of the windiest places on earth. By the end of this decade, the goal is for offshore wind to generate 65 gigawatts - that's the equivalent of 30 nuclear reactors.

What happens when the wind speed drops?

But what happens when the wind speed drops? And is global warming causing so-called wind droughts to happen more often?

"Climate change definitely can have an impact on wind variability," says Matti Juhani Koivisto, Senior Researcher at DTU Wind and Energy Systems. "There's a lot of uncertainty, we should say, between the models. But they seem to show a slight increase in variability, especially a bit more wind droughts."
[...]
"At lower wind speeds turbines produce less power," says Kenneth Thomsen, Head of Division at DTU Wind Turbine Design. "But we can change the design so that we have a bigger rotor compared to the generator and then it meets the rated power, sooner at a lower wind speed. And it means that it produces more constant power, even at lower wind speeds."

In the years ahead, our ability to measure and assess wind variability will be vital. Having reliable data about wind droughts and predictions of the conditions that we may face, will be crucial to manage effectively, with wind being just one component in a broader renewable European energy system.

The wind conditions over Europe in 2021 were first assessed by comparing the annual and quarterly average wind speeds at 100 metres above the surface to their average for the 1991-2020 reference period, using the ERA5 re[-]analysis dataset (Figure 1a). The 2021 annual mean wind speed was most below average in northwestern and central Europe, in a band stretching from the UK and Ireland, and their adjacent seas, to Germany and Czechia. This region experienced wind speeds as much as 10% below average in some places. In contrast, stronger-than-average winds prevailed over most of southeastern Europe, from Italy to Türkiye.
[...]

[...]
The decarbonisation of the energy sector will mean a growing share of renewables in final energy consumption (renewable energy represented 21.8% of energy consumed in the EU in 2021) and wind energy will be a key constituent in the EU's renewable basket. According to Wind Europe, the EU's electricity demand will more than double, from 3,000 TWh today to 6,800 TWh by 2050, with wind accounting for 50% of the EU's electricity mix. To make the most of Europe's wind resource, stakeholders all along the wind power supply chain—from planners to power plant operators—will need access to high quality data on wind variability across the continent. This is something that C3S provides.
[...]
Vortex - modelled data for the wind industry

The Vortex technology is based on a weather research and forecasting (WRF) model, which is a state-of-the-art non-linear flow code developed through a collaborative effort by several atmospheric research centres with contributions from the wind energy community. Vortex takes ERA5 data (of which the smallest grid unit is 25 kilometres) and uses it as a starting point to develop products that can reach a resolution of 100 metres. This is the level of detail needed to design windfarms and optimise their operations.
[...]
[Vortex CEO Pep Moreno, A/V (EN), 00:01:26]