Celtic Sea Power (CSP) and engineering firm Wood have unveiled a groundbreaking wind resource model for the Celtic Sea, aimed at accelerating offshore wind development by up to two years through enhanced data insights.
The partners collaborated to address existing data gaps and leverage recent advancements in wind and metocean data acquisition, including from three pioneering floating LiDAR systems (FLS) deployed offshore in the Celtic Sea.
Describing the model as “bank grade,” CSP highlighted its robustness and the collaborative effort behind it: “The regional wind resource model developed provides a high level of confidence regarding the available wind resource in the areas of The Crown Estate Planned Development Area region in the Celtic Sea and is considered to be suitable to underpin bank-grade energy yield assessment,” said Iain Nisbet, Director of Analysis (Clean Energy) at Wood.
The model integrates data from CSP's operations and a strategic data-sharing arrangement with commercial partners, aiming to support the planned deployment of 4.932GW of Floating LiDAR Offshore Wind (FLOW) by 2035. This capacity could potentially meet the annual electricity needs of over eight million UK homes.
FLS buoys deployed by CSP were equipped not only with wind sensors but also with wave sensors, providing crucial insights into both wind resource and wave conditions. This data supports early design considerations for floating offshore wind structures in the Celtic Sea and offers insights into operational planning and ecosystem impacts.
Wood's role in the project included data analysis services critical for ensuring the reliability and spatial certainty of the model. “Wood provided data analysis services and delivering its view, as an experienced lender's technical authority, on the veracity of the modelled data and the extent of its spatial certainty,” added Nisbet.
The collaborative approach has also facilitated a data-sharing initiative among commercial developers interested in Celtic Sea wind resources, with seven developers already onboard, including Flotation Energy. They provided additional FLS data from their White Cross test and demonstration site.
“We were delighted to collaborate with Celtic Sea Power to build a model which is sufficiently robust to provide bank grade yield analysis,” said Al Rayner, Project Director for White Cross at Flotation Energy. “It shows just how important test and demonstration sites like White Cross are in helping future projects save time and money during the development phase.”
Looking ahead, CSP plans to continuously enhance the model with updated wind and metocean data to improve spatial and temporal coverage, reinforcing confidence levels for future offshore wind projects in the Celtic Sea.
