Mapping the future offshore wind potential in Denmark: Assessment of 2050 wind farm scenarios

Operating large offshore wind farms reduces wind speeds within the farms and in the downwind areas, a phenomenon known as wind farm wake. This can significantly impact annual energy production, especially in regions with densely packed wind turbines. In a project funded by the Danish Energy Agency[1] and the EuroWindWakes Project[2], we analyse this in Danish waters. We use a mesoscale model to simulate atmospheric conditions and apply two wind farm parameterisations (the Fitch and EWP schemes) to evaluate their effects. We model the flow to estimate wind resources for the North Sea, South Baltic Sea, and Kattegatover a typical year, considering several wind farm scenarios: (i) no wind farms, (ii) existing farms as of November 2021, (iii) planned installations in 2030, and (iv) projected setups for 2050. The 2050 scenario includes four wind farm configurations, each with the same total installed capacity. We simulate reductions in wind speed and other climate conditions caused by wind farm operations. We evaluate the mesoscale simulations of the 2021 wind farm scenario using the two schemes with wind measurements from the Northand Baltic Seas. Additionally, we examine how changes in wind speed affect capacity factors, energy yields,and full-load hours for each turbine and for the overall Danish power system.

Our findings show that the wind farms planned for 2025 could reduce average wind speeds within and downwind of clusters, with deficits reaching up to -2.5 m/s in the North Sea Danish EEZ. About half of the Danish sea could experience reductions of at least -0.25 m/s. Wake losses in future scenarios are estimated to be between 13–24% in 2050, slightly higher than the 11–20% expected in 2030 due to larger capacity and clustering, driven by low-capacity density and placement in high-wind areas. Despite these wake effects, projected annual energy production in Denmark shows a significant increase—from around 24 TWh in 2021 to 84–94 TWh in 2030, and 204–232 TWh in 2050—and full load hours rise from roughly 3009 to over 3430. A scenario with many small, dense farms optimises the balance between wake losses and energy output, though infrastructure costs may be higher for small, spread-out farms. The wind speed deficits and capacity factors from the mesoscale model are consistent across two grid resolutions tested, confirming the robustness of the mesoscale wake impact analysis.

1 https://orbit.dtu.dk/en/publications/environmental-mapping-and-screening-of-the-offshore-wind-potentia/

2 https://www.iwes.fraunhofer.de/en/research-projects/current-projects/eurowindwakes.html