Site Conditions

This repository contains reference site condition data and utilities intended for use in floating array design research. The data are intended to be regionally representative but not exact for a specific site, and they are provided as-is.

Reference Site Condition Datasets for Floating Wind Arrays in the United States

To support research on floating arrays in U.S. regions, we developed reference site condition datasets, including metocean and seabed information, for four areas from publicly available data. Our metocean analysis, covering wind, waves, and surface currents, utilized measurement and hindcast data from 2000 to 2020. Sources included the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s National Offshore Wind Dataset for wind data, National Data Buoy Center buoys for wave data, and the High Frequency Radar Network for surface currents. These data were integrated into hourly time series used to compute extreme return periods up to 500 years, monthly statistics, and joint probability clusters for fatigue analysis. Soil conditions were evaluated using the usSEABED database and bathymetry grids were interpolated from the NCEI Digital Elevation Model Global Mosaic.

Further information on the datasets and how they were created can be found in the following report:

• Biglu, Michael, Matthew Hall, Ericka Lozon, and Stein Housner. 2024. Reference Site Conditions for Floating Wind Arrays in the United States. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/TP-5000-89897. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy24osti/89897.pdf

The data are available for direct download at https://data.nrel.gov/submissions/241 and can be cited as follows:

• Biglu, Michael, Matthew Hall, Ericka Lozon, and Stein Housner. 2024. "Reference Site Condition Datasets for Floating Wind Arrays in the United States." NREL Data Catalog. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Last updated: January 16, 2025. DOI: 10.7799/2425969.

The files describing each reference site are labeled as follows:

_NOW23_wind.txt: Hourly NOW-23 wind data up to a height of 400 meter. 
_metocean_1hr.txt: Hourly time series including wind, wave, surface current and temperature data. 
_Summary.xlsx: Metocean data, including extreme values, joint probability distributions and monthly statistics. 
_usSEABED_soil.csv: Extract of the usSEABED database for this location. 
_bathymetry_200m.txt (and 500m, 1000m): Gridded seabed depth data.