EERA DeepWind’2020: The future is offshore

The EERA DeepWind‘2020 Research and Innovation Conference was a success with a full house with researchers and industry interacting in an exciting atmosphere. A mix of plenary presentations with broad appeal and presentations in parallel sessions and posters on specific science and technology themes were presented.

The conference is established as an important venue on deep sea offshore wind research hosted by SINTEF and NTNU and organized in association with the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) joint programme on wind energy. The aim is to present the latest and best on-going research and innovation on deep sea offshore wind farms.

The conference was opened by the Conference Chairs John Olav Giæver Tande Tande and Trond Kvamsdal followed by an exciting session with invited keynote speakers from Europe, China and Korea all presenting exciting opportunities for offshore wind energy.

Key note speakers at opening session. From top left: Peter Eecen, TNO, Katherine Dykes, DTU, Prof. Hyunkyoung Shin, University of Ulsan, Aidan Cronin, SiemensGamesa, Lizet Ramirez, WindEurope and Dr. Liu Yongqian, North China Electric Power University

In total 55 oral and 30 posters were presented addressing new turbine and generator technology, grid connection and power system integration, met-ocean conditions, operation & maintenance, installation and sub-structures, wind farm optimization, and wind farm control systems. There were also a conference reception and a poster session followed by a conference banquet. At the banquet the participants spontaneously applauded the mission to make floating offshore wind commercial attractive by 2030.

At the conference there were two side-events:

• On the first day of the conference there was a Norwegian event on how to succeed in offshore wind with presentations and debate on development of offshore wind with respect for nature and other use of the sea. The presentations of this event are available here (in Norwegian only).
• On the second day of the conference there was a workshop organized by the EU SETwind project to present and discuss opportunities for developing an ambitious pan-European effort in offshore wind energy research that will contribute to achieving the targets set in the Paris Agreement. The presentations are available here.

During the closing session there were three keynotes. Kristian Holm presented Equionor’s impressive progress and plans for developing offshore wind farms, both bottom-fixed and floating. Dr. Jim Stian Olsen of Aker Solutions presented results of a truly exciting open innovation project called Zero Emission Energy Distribution at Sea (ZEEDS) and Dr Carlos Eduardo Lima Da Cunha gave an excellent overview of their research and innovation programmes for accelerating the development of offshore wind energy.

Keynote speakers during closing session. From left: Kristian Holm, Equinor, Dr. Jim Stian Olsen, Aker Solutions, and Dr. Carlos Eduardo Lima Da Cunha, EC.

EERA DeepWind’2020 was concluded by the poster award ceremony. Two papers were awarded:

• The poster award for best scientific content was given to Manuela Böhm from ForWind, Leibniz University Hannover for her excellent work “Wind Optimization-based calibration of hydrodynamic drag coefficients for a semi-submersible platform using experimental data of an irregular sea state“.
• The poster award for best presentation was given to Duy Tan Tran from NTNU for his excellent poster on “GANs assisted super-resolution simulation of atmospheric flows.”

Left picture: Best Poster Award based on scientific content. The award winner Manuela Böhm, ForWind is number three from left. The others are the conference chairs: Prof Trond Kvamsdal, NTNU, John Olav G. Tande, SINTEF and Prof Michael Muskulus, NTNU.

Right picture: Best Poster Award based on best communication. The award winner Duy Tan Tran, NTNU is number four from left. The others are Prof Trond Kvamsdal, NTNU, John Olav G. Tande, SINTEF and Prof Michael Muskulus, NTNU.

The presentations and posters from EERA DeepWind’2020 Conference are now available at the conference website EERA DeepWind’2020 whereas selected papers are now in peer-review for publication in the Journal of Physics: Conference series.

Mark your calendars: The next EERA DeepWind conference will take place in Trondheim, 13 – 15 January 2021.