Technical abstract gulf wind technology proposes to develop a hurricane wind turbine risk analysis method intended for use by the energy insurance industry

This work will combine inputs from the risk assessment framework for tropical cyclones model into aeroelastic simulations of representative design load cases, into a confidence-weighted ensemble averaging approach to assess turbine damage. The body of work seeks to overcome industry-wide challenges related to numerical and other instabilities in the simulation of these load cases through novel aerodynamic approaches and ensemble averaging methods common today in meteorology. If awarded, phase II would yield further refinement of the proof-of-concept phase i model based on state-of-the-art understanding of the hurricane boundary layer and simulation tools, a broader library of wind turbines, as well as wind tunnel modeling for improved inputs. Summary of anticipated results and implications, and potential commercial application the results of the proposed work will provide the energy insurance industry, particularly for offshore wind projects, with a data-based method for assessing asset risk, consistent with goal 5 of noaas blue economy strategic plan. Today, insurers rely on data from european wind farms, onshore wind farms, standard industrial curves, and building codes to determine the risk profile for a proposed project and set premiums. This data is not representative either due to the differing climate risk profiles of european offshore projects or U.S. Onshore projects, or fundamental differences in risk between a building and a wind turbine, but they nonetheless are the best available data sources. Gulf wind technologys proposed method would provide location-specific damage profiles based on the probability of different intensity storms impacting the site.