Calculating the offshore wind power resource: Robust assessment methods applied to the U.S. Atlantic Coast

This article describes improved techniques to calculate the wind power resource of an offshore area. The method uses publicly available oceanic, environmental and socio-economic data to identify areas less suitable for development due to physical or technical constraints, safety or other hazards, environmental concerns, or competing uses. Using wind speed data from meteorological buoys, annual energy output is calculated for a representative offshore wind turbine. The average power resource is determined by dividing the total available area by a wind regime and the turbine-specific effective turbine footprint, yielding the maximum number of turbines, and then derating the output to account for wake effects and operational availability.