Assessing Tropical Cyclone Risk for Offshore Wind Farms in the Northwest Pacific Basin

Rapid development of offshore wind farms in the Northwest Pacific – led by China with over 40 GW of installed capacity – has concentrated high-value infrastructure in one of the world’s most tropical cyclone (TC) active basins. However, widely used vendor natural catastrophe models are primarily designed for land-based exposure and do not adequately represent offshore TC hazard.  

In this study, we introduce a framework for assessing TC risk for offshore wind farms. Using stochastic TC track sets, we generate hazard footprints representing maximum wind speeds across offshore sites. These footprints are integrated with industry exposure data to estimate potential damage and financial loss distributions.  We further evaluate uncertainty in hazard representation through sensitivity analysis using different TC track sets. Finally, we assess the impact of climate change by incorporating projected shifts in TC intensity and frequency under warming scenarios, highlighting how future climate conditions may alter offshore wind risk profiles.