Enefit Green has installed a floating meteorological station for the Liivi Bay Offshore Wind Farm
Enefit Green is developing an offshore wind farm in the Gulf of Riga with a capacity of up to 1,000 megawatts, which could supply up to half of Estonia's annual electricity needs. The wind farm would consist of up to 84 turbines, generating around four terawatt-hours of green electricity each year.
As part of the project, Enefit Green is deploying a floating measurement system, consisting of a LiDAR and a wave spotter buoy. In addition, a seabed-mounted sensor has been installed to monitor currents and winter ice. The collected data will be used to accurately predict the energy production of the wind farm and to better understand the meteorological properties of the site.
According to Erik Iida, Offshore Wind Development Engineer, "We have successfully started Enefit Green's most sophisticated meteorological measurement campaign to date. The wind measurements will be carried out in parallel, both offshore and onshore, to ensure robust results. One of the goals is to understand the turbulence of the wind, which is important for selecting the optimal wind turbines for our project. Turbulence refers to the fluctuations in wind that occur in periods up to a few seconds, which is a key driver of fatigue loads on wind farm components."
The campaign will be conducted over multiple seasons to capture a full range of weather conditions. Stephan Stone, Group Manager Wind Measurement System Technology at Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems IWES explained, "One of the main challenges is the potential build-up of ice during the winter, which is less common in the North Sea. We will see how the buoy performs under those conditions. In the worst case, the buoy can be retrieved from the water and stored on land during the winter season, then redeployed once the ice has cleared."
The project partners include Fraunhofer IWES, Luode, and the Estonian State Fleet. The proposed location for the offshore wind farm is in the Gulf of Riga, approximately 11 km from Kihnu Island and 16 km from Häädemeeste. Construction of the offshore wind farm is expected to begin in 2028.