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the influence of nocturnal low-level jets on the energy production from wind turbines
will grow beyond that what is experienced today.
7.2 Size of Offshore Wind Parks
The growing energy demand of mankind together with the limited resources of
fossil fuels, the decreasing availability of suitable onshore sites for wind energy
conversion and the necessity to bundle power transportation lines from the wind
parks to the shore will continuously foster the planning and erection of huge
offshore wind parks. The United Kingdom and Germany have already presented
initiatives to erect large offshore parks. Many other countries, especially those
having ocean coastlines in temperate latitude will follow. The larger these wind
parks become, the more the simple analytical estimations presented in
Chap. 6
of
this publication will become relevant. This is because the conditions in very large
wind
parks
are
much
closer
to
the
assumptions
made
for
these
analytical
estimations than in the presently existing parks.
7.3 Other Techniques of Converting Wind Energy
The meteorological basics gathered in this publication are relevant for all
boundary layer applications which depend on the kinetic energy contained in the
winds. The presented wind and turbulence laws and distributions influence clas-
sical wind turbines (regardless whether they have a horizontal or a vertical rotor
axis) as well as classical or new sailing boats and new kite-torn ships. However,
applications relying on kites soaring several kilometres about the surface are
beyond the scope of this publication. Existing climatologies of upper air winds
above the atmospheric boundary layer have to be investigated for the planning and
operation of the latter installations. These upper air winds are principally described
by the laws for geostrophic, gradient and thermal winds given in
Sects. 2.3
and
2.4
.
7.4 New Measurement and Modelling Tools
to Assess Wind Conditions
Measurement techniques for atmospheric parameters at hub height and over the area
swept by the rotor must change in future. The growing hub heights and upper tip heights
of the turbine rotors make it more and more impossible to perform in situ measure-
ments from masts specially erected for this purpose. Ground-based remote sensing
will substitute mast measurements in the foreseeable future. Emeis (
2010b
,
2011
)
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