TGS has completed a two-year mega-regional wind and metocean data collection campaign along the U.S. East Coast—the largest of its kind in the region.

The campaign involved deploying and operating five offshore LiDAR buoys covering 600 km from Massachusetts to the Virginia-North Carolina border. The buoys collected a range of wind and metocean data, including wind speed and direction, wave heights and ocean current data across the full water column.

“These unique measurements empower developers to accurately assess the true wind resource variability across most of the U.S. East Coast offshore wind lease areas,” Carel Hooijkaas, executive vice president of new energy solutions at TGS, said in the July 24 press release.

The collected data was used to bias-correct TGS’ Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model simulations, making it the most validated high-resolution wind resource dataset along the U.S. East Coast.

TGS said that both the quality-controlled measurement data and the NWP model data are being utilized by developers to inform and refine their bidding strategies for BOEM’s upcoming Central Atlantic offshore wind lease auction.

Similar initiatives have been successfully deployed in Germany and offshore Norway, with additional campaigns planned globally.

TGS LiDAR maps
The five buoys covered a 600 km along the east coast, from Massachusetts to the Virginia-North Carolina border. (Source: TGS)
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