Analysis of Environmental Conditions for the Conceptual Design of a 200 MW Floating Offshore Wind Farm in the East Sea, Korea

Due to global climate change, concern regarding the environment is greater than ever. Also, the energy industry is constantly developing and investing in new and renewable energy to reduce carbon emissions. Korea is planning to increase the proportion of renewable energy generation to 20% by 2030, in accordance with the 3020 renewable energy policy. This will involve 16.5 GW (34%) from wind energy, with a capacity from offshore wind energy of approximately 13 GW. Considering domestic technological wind resource potential (33.2 GW), it seems to be a sufficient target amount. However, in order to start the wind power generation business, the installation area must be analyzed for environmental information, for the evaluation of the wind resource and the early-stage concept design. Because it is difficult to conduct long-term measurements of the entire sea area, the environmental conditions are generally estimated from short-term measurement data and long-term reanalysis data. In this study, the environmental conditions of the East Sea of Korea were selected, and a comparative analysis was performed on the meteorological agency’s oceanic meteorology buoy data, ERA-5 reanalysis data obtained from ECMWF, and NASA’s MERRA-2 data. The extreme sea states of 50 years and 100 years were analyzed by extreme statistical analysis. Finally, environmental conditions required for the basic design of wind turbines were selected following IEC and DNV standards.