Offshore Wind, Optimised in One Hour: Designing for Neighbouring Clusters and Wake Steering

July 15, 2025 Articles & PR | Market insights | Offshore 5 min read time

As the offshore wind industry accelerates, a new operational reality is emerging: wind farms are no longer isolated. Instead, they form part of dense coastal clusters, where turbines across different projects interact aerodynamically, particularly through complex wake effects. This clustering presents new design challenges, along with new digital solutions.

Reimagining Wake Loss Simulations

One of the most pressing challenges for developers working in these environments is wake loss modelling. Simulating how turbine wakes interact, not only within the wind farm but also with neighbouring wind farms, has historically been a multi-day computational task. With spatial planning timelines tight and urgent design decisions, such delays should be reduced.

Now, thanks to technological advances, those multi-day calculations can be reduced to just a few hours, and in some cases, completed in approximately one hour, without compromising detail or resolution. This isn’t just about speed; it’s a strategic shift that transforms how developers approach offshore wind farm layout and cluster coordination.

Youwind’s Solution

At the heart of this advancement is Youwind’s integrated platform. Capable of simulating thousands of turbines at once, it supports widely used wake models, including N.O. Jensen, TurbOPark, and Eddy-Viscosity formulations. The tool also includes optional blockage effects and allows users to dynamically explore different layouts and constraints, empowering faster and more reliable decisions.

This step change enables users to perform region-wide wind resource assessments and layout optimizations in record time. Essential for financial modelling in wind energy and early project scoping.

Key Technical Features:

Wake loss modelling across large spatial areas in as little as one hour, depending on project complexity
Support for multiple wake models (O. Jensen, TurbOPark, Eddy-Viscosity)
Simulation of both internal and external (neighboring) wake effects
Scalability for thousands of turbines in one simulation
Real-time layout adjustment and scenario comparison for wind farms

Strategic Advantage: Early Integration of Wake Steering

The ability to simulate rapidly also opens the door for proactive wake steering; not post-installation fixes, but smart layout and control decisions integrated at the concept stage.

This means developers can embed yield-maximizing strategies into their designs from day one, leading to:

Higher long-term production
Fewer post-construction interventions
Stronger bankable yield assessments from the outset

It’s a shift from reactive correction to predictive control, and it’s only feasible because simulations are now fast enough to explore dozens of design alternatives before locking in key decisions.

A Smarter Future for Offshore Wind

These advances represent more than incremental gains; they are foundational shifts in offshore wind planning. By shortening wake modelling timelines from days to minutes, developers can work smarter, respond to spatial constraints more effectively, and make better data-driven decisions in wind energy development.

Platforms like Youwind, with their expert-backed and collaborative workflow for wind developers, are not just keeping up with industry evolution; they are driving it. Whether through GIS constraint analysis, yield optimization, or integrated financial modelling, the goal remains the same: clarity in motion for a more resilient wind future.

Read the full article

Written by Edvald Edvaldsson, Founder and CTO

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