Reference Site Conditions for Four U.S. Floating Wind Areas

Delivering metocean and seabed information for four potential floating offshore wind project areas in the United States: Humboldt Bay, Morro Bay, the Gulf of Maine, and the Gulf of Mexico. It was compiled from publicly available sources, with metocean analysis covering wind, waves, and surface currents from 2000 to 2020. The data includes hourly time series, extreme value return periods, monthly statistics, joint probability clusters, soil conditions, and bathymetry grids.

Use Cases

• Compute extreme return periods up to 500 years using the metocean time series for structural design risk assessment.
• Analyze joint probability clusters from the summary data for fatigue analysis of floating wind turbine components.
• Model seabed depth and soil conditions from the bathymetry grids and usSEABED extract for foundation design.
• Train a model to predict hourly wind profiles up to 400 meters using the NOW-23 wind data for energy yield estimation.

Strengths

• Metocean data spans 20 years from 2000 to 2020, providing a long-term climate record.
• Covers four distinct geographic areas for floating wind development in the U.S.
• Integrates multiple data types including wind, waves, currents, temperature, soil, and bathymetry.
• Includes derived statistics such as extreme return periods and joint probability clusters for engineering use.

Limitations

• Data is compiled from disparate public sources, which may introduce inconsistencies in resolution or quality.
• The spatial coverage is limited to four specific project areas, not a comprehensive national survey.
• Soil data is an extract from the usSEABED database, which may have inherent interpolation and uncertainty.

Provenance

Source

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), National Data Buoy Center, High Frequency Radar Network, usSEABED database, NCEI Digital Elevation Model.

Collection Method

Compiled and integrated from publicly available measurement datasets and databases.

Time Range

2000 to 2020 for metocean analysis.

Freshness

Data covers up to 2020; the dataset record was last updated in March 2026.

Geography

Four U.S. sites: Humboldt Bay (CA), Morro Bay (CA), Gulf of Maine, Gulf of Mexico.