A primary offshore wind farm site assessment using reanalysis data: a case study for Samothraki island

The correct strategy for monitoring and assessing marine Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) is of great importance for local/national sustainable development. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to measure in the most precise possible manner the local/regional RESs potential. This is especially true for Offshore Wind (OW) energy potential, since the most precise techniques are long and expensive, and are not able to assess the RESs potential of large areas. Today, Remote Sensing (RS) satellites can be considered the most important land and marine observation tools. The RS tools can be used to identify the interested areas for future OW energy converters installations in large and small-scale areas. In this study, the OW energy potential has been analysed by means of a 40 years wind speed data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis dataset of the Samothraki island surrounding area in the Mediterranean Sea. The OW speed potential has been analysed by means of monthly data from ECMWF Interim reanalysis (ERA-Interim) datasets using the Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) format. Automatically, analyses have been carried out using the Region Of Interest (ROI) tool and Geographical Information System (GIS) software in order to extract information about the OW speed assessment of the Samothraki island area. The primary results of this study show that the southwest area of Samothraki island has good potential for future OW farms installation (bottom fixed and floating version) in near and offshore areas. This study shows the OW energy potential per location, as well as the trend of OW speed, which has changed over the past 40 years in the Mediterranean Sea.