The Influence of Large-Scale Wind Farm Wake Losses and Sector Coupling on the Development of Offshore Grids

Offshore grids can have a key role in the transition of the energy system to sustainability. Although they require extensive infrastructure investments, they open up for the exploitation of additional resources and may be important to provide for part of the increasing electricity demand driven by sector coupling. This paper quantifies the socio-economic value of offshore grids and identifies their major drivers, performing energy system optimization in a model application of the Northern-central European energy system and the North Sea offshore grid towards 2050. The increasing wake loss with the size of hub-connected wind farms is integrated in the modelling. We find that without sector coupling no offshore grid may develop, and that the higher the level of sector coupling, the higher the value of offshore grids. Considering the influence of increasing wake losses with the size of hub-connected wind farms is especially relevant with higher level of sector coupling, leading to a more spread distribution of hub-connected wind farms, and to an improved representation of the available wind generation in the hubs. Therefore, it can be strongly stated that offshore grid infrastructure development should not be discussed as a separate political topic, but seen in connection to sector coupling.