OWA GloBE: The management, processing and evaluation of a large dataset for the identification and quantification of Global Blockage Effects

he GLOBE project represents one of the most extensive offshore measurement campaigns ever conducted in the wind energy industry, aiming to reduce the commercial uncertainty around the modelling of Global Blockage Effects (GBE), launched under the Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator and led by RWE. The campaign took place at the Heligoland wind farm cluster in the German Bight. The campaign made use of 6 WindCube 400s devices measuring in a step-stare pattern up to 7km with drone calibration (picture is below. In blue and green, LiDAR 1 and 2, in black and yellow, LiDAR 5 and 6, in red and brown, LiDAR 4 and 7), a refurbished met mast equipped with profiling and high frequency measurement devices (cup and sonic anemometers), amongst others. The raw product of the campaign comprises terabytes of data from various different sources, and its analysis required the usage of data engineering, data science and statistics techniques. The work here presented culminates in an analysis of the magnitude of GBE depending on different atmospheric conditions and presents the various creative technical solutions found to address the challenge of processing a highly complex data set and relevant to any organisation wishing to engage in such an effort.