海角社区 Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Develops Software to Protect Offshore Windfarms
December 18, 2024
BATON ROUGE, LA 鈥� In July 2023, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced that it would hold
the first-ever offshore wind energy lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico. Since then,
renewable energy companies have expressed interest in wind farming, with the Bureau
of Ocean Energy Management finalizing four Wind Energy Areas that could produce enough
clean, renewable energy to power more than 3 million homes. However, with this rapid
growth comes challenges, such as protecting these wind farms from hurricanes.
Thanks to a nearly $500,000 grant from the 海角社区 Institute of Energy Innovation, 海角社区 Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Associate Professor and his team, including 海角社区 Oceanography and Coastal Sciences Assistant Professor Paul Miller and 海角社区 CEE Associate Professor , are developing computational software to enable resilient design and optimized planning, operation, and safety management of offshore wind farms facing extreme hurricanes in the Gulf.
鈥淗urricane exposure is a major challenge for Wind Energy Areas in the Gulf,鈥� Sun said. 鈥淯nder climate change conditions, more frequent and severe tropical cyclones are anticipated, posing a major threat to the design, installation, operation, and safety management of offshore wind farms. Currently, extreme site-specific metocean data for the Wind Energy Areas in the Gulf is lacking, and comprehensive software is unavailable.鈥�
Sun鈥檚 research aims to develop a synergistic computational software package that includes mesoscale modeling of past strong hurricanes near Wind Energy Areas, estimation of the frequencies and intensities of future hurricanes near the Wind Energy Areas, mesoscale modeling of future hurricanes near the Wind Energy Areas with modified atmospheric conditions to reflect anticipated climate changes, developing a microscale hurricane-boundary layer model to characterize extreme hurricane winds at the Wind Energy Areas, developing a synergistic framework for system-level performance assessment and survival analysis of offshore wind farms during the passage of hurricanes in the Gulf, and engaging outreach stakeholders and end-users in the research.
鈥淭he research outcomes (hurricane-induced extreme wind, wave, current data, offshore wind farm performance analysis software, and extreme wind-wave load models) can be directly used for resilient planning and design of offshore wind farms in the Gulf,鈥� Sun said. 鈥淕ulf Wind Technology will participate in the research and use the research products for resilient design, risk analysis, and safety management of offshore wind farms facing major hurricanes.鈥�
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