The Norwegian Centre for Offshore Wind Energy (NORCOWE)

The Norwegian Centre for Offshore Wind Energy (NORCOWE) is an interdisciplinary resource centre for the exploitation of offshore wind energy as a natural sustainable energy source. Key players in the development of Norwegian offshore technology join forces with leading Danish and international communities on onshore and shallow water wind energy to define the future state of the art in the field of offshore wind energy technology.The centre was founded in 2009 as one of now eleven centres for Environment-friendly Energy Research (FME), and is hosted by Christian Michelsen Research AS in Bergen. The mid-way evaluation in 2013 was positive, and NORCOWE will have funding from the Research Council of Norway till the end of 2017. NORCOWE takes the lead in the development of new innovative and cost efficient solutions for the exploitation of offshore wind energy at large water depths and in harsh offshore environments.Todays offshore wind energy solutions are based on technology developed for onshore installations. Technology and concepts needed for deep waters and exposed areas are in an early stage and new and more cost effective concepts and solutions are needed based on R&D and industrial innovations. This Centre consisting of R&D organisations and innovative industrial partners will meet this challange by focusing on the following topics: 1) Met/ocean data - Measurements and database, 2) Wind energy estimation - Wind resource assessment, energy yield and layout for offshore wind farms, 3) Design, installation and operation of offshore wind.The Centre includes innovative partners from offshore industry, emerging offshore wind companies and energy companies, all seeing future business opportunities in offshore wind. The Centre cooperates internationally, in particular with danish wind energy reseach by having Aalborg University as a research partner. The Centre will be organised with a strong administrative and scientific leadership, an executive board governed by industry and a user reference group and a scientifc committe that will assure industrial relevance and quality of research being performed. The Centre is planned for 8 years. NORCOWE has signed Memorandums of Understanding with Fraunhofer IWES, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Energy research Centre of the Netherlands and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). NORCOWE also has extensive collaboration with other universities, research institutions, companies and government agencies.