Readers are given a comprehensive and comprehensible overview of the current status of offshore wind energy research and the results of the research activities.

Offshore wind energy will play a significant role in our future energy supply, yet this development has really only just begun. A large team of experts from the fields of research, industry, public administration and government therefore set themselves the goal of investigating the current and fundamental issues relating to the use of offshore wind energy. Over 100 researchers in the RAVE (Research at Alpha Ventus) initiative worked on interdisciplinary research projects with the aim of expanding our knowledge and finding application-oriented solutions for offshore wind energy. Their work has contributed to establishing offshore wind energy as a reliable, sustainable and economical long term source of energy.

The Alpha Ventus test field, Germany's first offshore wind farm, provided the prerequisites for this research. The wind farm was furnished with a large number of measuring instruments, and the over 1200 measurement parameters recorded can now be accessed in a central research archive. The RAVE initiative researchers thus have the unique opportunity of using a great amount of measurement data recorded at an operational wind farm. The data is evaluated locally at research facilities across the whole of Germany.

The Authors

Project managers and employees of the RAVE research initiative, copy edited by Björn Johnsen

The Editors

Michael Durstewitz and Bernhard Lange (Fraunhofer IWES)