Objectives of the service
FASTWIND - Financial Analysis using Satellite Technology for Offshore Wind Energy
To accelerate Europe towards net-zero, governments, investors and developers are looking further offshore for wind and floating wind projects. This is driving a need to prospect large areas of ocean for the best potential wind farms where there is little or no resource data available. To assess the viability of these prospects, techno-financial models are needed to optimise, optioneer and compare projects. These models need metocean and specifically wind data to model them robustly.
The concept of FASTWIND is to productise the delivery of satellite SAR derived wind products and automatically deliver them into financial analysis tools.
The FASTWIND project brings satellite-based met-ocean data directly to offshore wind developers, allowing for data-driven decisions using a financial digital twin of their projects.
We have a unique proposition which will directly connect satellite wind data through a techno-financial package ultimately yielding better placed, optimised and lower cost wind projects.
Potential applications range from optimising site selection to improving bankability and maximising the financial performance of operational projects based on forecasting.
The collaboration between Exceedence, NORCE and Simply Blue Group showcases the great potential of satellite data as an information source for offshore wind development.
The project develops a cloud-based system that integrates Exceedence’s techno-financial analysis software, Exfin, and NORCE’s processing chain for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data that produces satellite wind products for resource mapping.
Get in touch to learn more and join the pilot: info@exceedence.com
Users and their needs
Although the offshore wind supply chain consists of a number of distinct segments, the FASTWIND project is currently targeting:
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Specialist Tier 3 project developers like Simply Blue Group, DP Energy, Inis Offshore and other boutiques.
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Large Tier1 and Tier2 energy companies who have a renewable energy development and operational group, such as EDPR, EDF, SSE, Orsted, RWE, ENEL
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Professional Service Consultants such as Arup, BVG, DNV, GDG, Venterra, Naver
Common user needs are:
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to prospect large areas of ocean for the best potential wind farms
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metocean and specifically wind data to drive techno-financial models.
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techno-financial models to optimise and optioneer and compare projects
FASTWIND will address these challenges by deriving data from satellite SAR as a new source of met-ocean data for the sector, and integrating it seamlessly into Exfin, a techno-financial analysis software tool.
Service/ system concept
There are two clear innovations in this project:
the processing of SAR data using an API that gives fit for purpose wind resource data for the customer.
connecting that data directly to a renewables financial modelling tool, which can be used to critically assess Return on Investment, run multiple options of offshore farms and make business decisions
Ultimately, the user is interested in the bottom line technical and financial KPIs from any given offshore site.
The already existing cloud-based financial digital twin software, Exfin, provides the user with a platform to build a project from resource selection, to perform yield calculation and costing, and to assess resulting Key Performance Indicators (Capacity Factor, Resource density & availability, Levelised Cost of Energy, IRR, Net Present Value, ROI and payback period). Along with this, Exfin also gives the user analytic and optimisation tools to understand and improve each potential project.
However, each project is still very dependent on getting good resource information at the front end and obtaining this consistently, cost effectively and quickly. FASTWIND addresses this by allowing the user to buy already processed satellite data, delivered directly into Exfin, ready for project build.
Space Added Value
FASTWIND uses Sentinel-1 data, which is freely available as an existing large archive of consistent, daily satellite observations spanning the years from 2015 up till current. The latter ensures that valid wind statistics can be obtained that represent with high confidence a realistic variation in wind conditions and the true wind distribution for the AOI. The Sentinel-1 satellites being a part of the Copernicus programme further guarantees continuity in data delivery, as well as scientific quality of the algorithms implemented for wind retrieval.
The unique selling proposition of FASTWIND is that the proposed service delivers key financial figures from SAR-based wind resource estimates without any required user interaction with the SAR data nor the techno-financial model. Production of SAR wind products, interpolation to hub height, production of wind statistics and assimilation into the financial digital twin is integrated into the service and relieves the customer of all data processing.
To setup a similar system that collects wind resource data as input to a financial analysis has a high cost, both in terms of the required competences and equipment.
Current Status
Source: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2014/02/Sentinel-13
The project has just reached its first Milestone with the activities so far summarised as follows:
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Early promotion of the project and partners through communications of the project through a “Newsletter” which was shared on offshore biz
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Validation of market fit through several meetings and questionnaire responses from potential users of the final product
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10 meetings between project partners to determine a cohesive design and development plan
Activities to start:
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Implement the plan to develop the integrated cloud-based system between Exceedence and NORCE, along with required testing
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Promotion of Pilot phase: Wind developer or other users, please contact info@exceedence.com for more information on how to join the pilot phase
Prime Contractor(s)
