Studies Concerning the Coastal Impact of an Offshore Wind Farm Operating in the Vicinity of the Danube Delta

Abstract

Motivated by the fact that the European offshore industry is continuously expanding, the present work has as main objective to assess the expected coastal impact of a large wind project, which would operate in the vicinity of the Danube Delta. Since the distance to the coastline represents an important aspect for the development of such a project, both from an economical and a technical point of view, three main case studies were taken into accounts, namely: a) wind farm located at 3 km from the shoreline; b) wind farm at 4.5 km; c) wind farm at 6 km. The structure of the wind farm is similar for all scenarios, involving a total of 54 wind turbines distributed along 3 lines (18 systems per line), the distance between each system being around three times the rotor diameter of a typical wind turbine. Based on these outcome of the present work can be mentioned that the results look promising, since they reveal a significant attenuation of the wave energy in the presence of the farm, which indicate that a such project may provide besides renewable energy also an effective coastal protection for all the scenarios taken into Account.