Satellite remote sensing applied to off-shore wind energy

Wind as an energy resource has been increasingly in the focus of attention over the past decades, starting with the global oil crisis in the 1970s. The possibility of expanding wind power production to off-shore locations is attractive, especially in sites where wind levels tend to be higher and more constant. Wind turbine energy production is usually evaluated by means of a wind turbine power curve, which is provided by the manufacturer and it is an important parameter to estimate wind plant per-formances. In this study we present a methodology aimed to support both planning of offshore wind farms using historical series of satellite data in order to detect the sites which could provide more wind energy production than others, and near real-time monitoring of offshore wind energy performances by means of SAR data. SAR wind data are retrieved from measured radar backscat-ter using empirical geophysical model functions, achieving good accuracy, global coverage and greater spatial resolution with respect to other wind measurement methods. Moreover, we are able to calculate the AC power yield expected behaviour, using detailed models of each part of the wind plants. In brief, we use SAR data from Cosmo-SkyMed in X-Band and from ERS and ENVISAT in C-Band to generate instant wind speeds and a composite product from NCDC NOAA to investigate wind climatology. Such methodologies are currently being developed within the scope of SATENERG, a research project funded by ASI (Italian Space Agency). These methods have been applied in several test cases, and successful results in comparison with standard methodologies were obtained.