Wind Site Suitability Comparison

Compares HAWT and VAWT options for offshore wind site selection using resource assessment and corrected annual energy production estimates to reduce architecture and siting uncertainty.

The Problem

Offshore wind developers lack a reliable way to compare HAWT and VAWT options at the same site before committing to architecture and layout decisions

Organizations face these key challenges:

1

HAWT and VAWT options are often evaluated with different assumptions and tools

2

Offshore wind resource, metocean, bathymetry, and exclusion-zone data are fragmented across systems

3

Corrected AEP calculations require many loss assumptions that are hard to harmonize

4

Early-stage architecture decisions are sensitive to sparse or noisy site data

Impact When Solved

Cuts architecture screening time from weeks to hours for offshore site candidatesImproves consistency of HAWT versus VAWT comparisons using a common data and modeling workflowReduces uncertainty in corrected annual energy production estimates before detailed designPrioritizes sites and turbine architectures with stronger expected energy yield and lower siting risk

The Shift

Before AI~85% Manual

Human Does

  • Gather offshore resource, metocean, bathymetry, and exclusion-zone inputs from separate sources
  • Apply architecture-specific assumptions and loss factors to HAWT and VAWT cases in separate analyses
  • Review consultant studies, spreadsheets, and GIS outputs to compare corrected AEP results
  • Decide which site-architecture combinations move forward for pre-FEED screening and detailed study

Automation

  • No AI-driven workflow in the legacy process
  • No automated cross-architecture scenario ranking
  • No consistent estimation of missing site parameters across datasets
  • No automated explanation of corrected AEP differences or siting risk drivers
With AI~75% Automated

Human Does

  • Set comparison assumptions, screening criteria, and acceptable uncertainty thresholds
  • Review ranked HAWT and VAWT site options and approve candidates for deeper engineering
  • Resolve exceptions where site data are sparse, conflicting, or outside normal operating assumptions

AI Handles

  • Ingest and harmonize offshore resource, metocean, bathymetry, and constraint data into a common comparison workflow
  • Generate side-by-side HAWT and VAWT scenarios using standardized assumptions and corrected AEP estimation
  • Estimate missing parameters, score feasibility, and rank site-architecture combinations by expected yield and risk
  • Highlight the main drivers of energy-yield differences and flag scenarios with elevated uncertainty or data-quality issues

Operating Intelligence

How it works

AI runs the first three steps autonomously.

Humans own every decision.

The system gets smarter each cycle.

Confidence95%
ArchetypeRecommend & Decide
Shape6-step converge
Human gates1
Autonomy
67%AI controls 4 of 6 steps

Who is in control at each step

Each column marks the operating owner for that step. AI-led actions sit above the divider, human decisions and feedback loops sit below it.

Loop shapeconverge

Step 1

Assemble Context

Step 2

Analyze

Step 3

Recommend

Step 4

Human Decision

Step 5

Execute

Step 6

Feedback

AI lead

Autonomous execution

1AI
2AI
3AI
5AI
gate

Human lead

Approval, override, feedback

4Human
6 Loop
AI-led step
Human-controlled step
Feedback loop
TL;DR

AI handles assembly, analysis, and execution. The human gate sits at the decision point. Every cycle refines future recommendations.

The Loop

6 steps

1 operating angles mapped

Operational Depth

Technologies

Technologies commonly used in Wind Site Suitability Comparison implementations:

Key Players

Companies actively working on Wind Site Suitability Comparison solutions:

Real-World Use Cases

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