Designing Offshore & Onshore Foundations: Building the Backbone of Every Wind Farm

December 11, 2025 Articles & PR | Product Update | Offshore | Onshore 6 min read time

Early-stage offshore wind project development often prioritizes wind resource and layout optimization, while foundation feasibility is deferred to later design stages. Whether positioned far offshore or on land, foundations ensure turbines remain stable, safe, and accessible throughout decades of operation. As projects grow in size, the ability to correctly assess and model these foundations early in development is key to better estimate CAPEX and LCOE.

Wind Farm Challenges: Complex Loads, Costly Uncertainty

Developers face a key challenge: foundation design is highly site-specific. Water depth, soil conditions, turbine size, metocean data, and even mooring approaches can dramatically change the structural requirements and the cost. Traditionally, foundation modelling is dependent on fragmented data and often left too late in the planning cycle. This leads to underestimated budgets, and inaccurate project comparisons.

For offshore projects, the problem is amplified. Fixed-bottom and floating foundations behave differently, rely on different design drivers, and have a significant weight on CAPEX. Onshore, variable soil conditions and turbine scaling introduce similar uncertainty. Without an efficient way to estimate realistic weights and costs early, projects risk moving forward on assumptions that may not hold.

3D map view of offshore wind farm foundations with turbine positions, water depth data, and foundation cost estimates in the Youwind platform.

Streamlined Foundation Modelling Inside Youwind

Youwind introduces a structured way to define, compare, and model foundations for any wind farm scenario, offshore or onshore, without requiring deep engineering detail at the earliest stages.

Users start by selecting a foundation category from the library: either bottom-fixed (monopile, jacket, gravity-based), floating (spar, semi-submersible, tension-leg) or onshore foundations (gravity-based). The platform then applies tailored modelling strategies for each category. For monopiles, for example, Youwind offers both preliminary empirical estimations and a more advanced sizing method based on structural ratios and soil interaction. For jackets, an empirically scaled model accounts for turbine size and location-specific conditions. Floating solutions incorporate automatic calculations of mooring line lengths and footprint radii. Throughout all categories, secondary steel structures and installation costs are automatically incorporated.

Onshore gravity foundations benefit from scaling relationships derived from industry research, enabling quick estimation of concrete and reinforced steel requirements. As for offshore foundations, installation costs can also be accounted.

Crucially, Youwind allows developers to use manual inputs, automated calculations, or a hybrid approach, ensuring flexibility while maintaining consistency across scenarios.

Graph showing foundation weight constants versus water depth, including constant and linear scaling regions for offshore wind foundation modelling.

Foundation results panel displaying concrete volume, steel weight, total weight, and cost breakdown for an onshore wind turbine foundation in the Youwind platform.

Why It Matters: Smarter Strategies, Lower Risk, Stronger Wind Farms

Accurate, early-stage foundation modelling isn’t just a technical advantage; it’s a strategic one. By integrating foundation technology, site suitability and cost into layouts from day one, developers can:

Make more confident comparisons across turbine types, sites, and technologies.

Account for site suitability by ensuring that foundations meet both seabed conditions and water depth requirements.

Reduce design uncertainty for both fixed-bottom and floating wind farm options.

Improve CAPEX forecasts and strengthen investment cases.

Accelerate project screening and eliminate unfeasible concepts early.

Build a more transparent workflow where engineering, GIS, and finance rely on the same validated inputs.

As the industry pushes toward deeper waters, larger turbines, and more complex environments, foundation intelligence becomes a core differentiator. With Youwind’s modelling tools, teams gain a clearer and data-driven understanding of what it truly takes to support a modern wind turbine. Through advanced simulations, transparent workflows, and high-resolution datasets, Youwind enables developers to evaluate geotechnical risks, bathymetry limitations, compare foundation concepts, and anticipate long-term performance impacts earlier in the process. This empowers project teams to make more confident decisions, streamline design iterations, and ensure that every foundation strategy aligns with technical, environmental, and financial objectives.

Written by Ignasi Badia Puyol

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