German weather service looks to unite offshore monitoring sites

GERMANY: The German weather service DWD has commissioned energy consultancy GL Garrad Hassan for a three-year wind-monitoring project in the Baltic and North Sea.

Fino 1 and 3 are in the North Sea, while Fino 2 is in the Baltic

Within the agency's Fino Wind project, the consultancy will be responsible for collecting and handling the data and metadata gathered, as well as correcting the data for anomalies across three sites.

The objective is to combine the results from the already operational meteorological platforms as well as to develop standardised analyses of the data.

"The results of the Fino Wind project will make a decisive contribution to obtaining a cohesive overview of the wind conditions in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Furthermore, the project will ensure that measurement, testing and universal standards are developed that ensure comparability of the offshore conditions independent of the individual circumstances,'" said Peter Frohböse, head of offshore at GL Garrad Hassan.

Measuring masts are installed on the three research platforms in the Baltic and North Sea that record weather conditions at different heights, especially the wind speed and direction, but are currently analysed in isolation.