”I have visions and I know, what is going on in the offshore wind area,” says the new Professor MSO in ‘Offshore Wind Energy Meteorology’.
As of December 15 2019, Charlotte Bay Hasager can call herself Professor MSO in ‘Offshore Wind Energy Meteorology’ at DTU Wind Energy.
“I’m so proud. It really hasn’t sunk in yet,” she says with a laugh.
The future
Charlotte Bay Hasager has been at DTU Wind Energy almost her entire working life. She started as a research assistant in 1993 and after getting her PhD, she moved on as postdoc, researcher and senior researcher with special competences. Now she is ready to take on a new role as Professor.
“I know that offshore wind energy is the future. I can say that without any hesitations. It will be our main energy source in the future,” she says and continues:
“The future opens up for a lot of new offshore wind farms. However, today, we only have a limited amount of measurements telling, how the wind blows at the tallest heights, and, as we know, offshore wind turbines are getting bigger and bigger. Thus, we need new measurements to help us place offshore wind farms on the right spot. I find that very interesting. Offshore wind farms is a global trend and I am particularly interested in offshore winds in other geographies. It is exciting research to investigate the winds to enable offshore wind energy development.”
More focus on wakes
“We know that when the air is warm and the ocean is cold, then there will be short wakes behind the wind farms. If it is the other way around with a cold air and a warm ocean, then the wind farm wakes will be extremely long. On top of that, and very important: When the large wind farms perturb the atmosphere at higher levels then the air aloft most often will ‘remember’ the disturbance very, very far downstream. That is most likely a main cause for changes in wind resources offshore in areas with wind farm clusters.
Today, Charlotte Bay Hasager has a lot of focus on PhD and supervising. She loves supervising and hopes to do even more of that in the future.
She mentions one of her PhD students, Anna-Maria Tilg as a good example of the importance of PhD students. Her PhD focuses on leading edge erosion of wind turbine blades, which also is an area Charlotte Bay Hasager finds interesting.
As a professor, Charlotte Bay Hasager wishes to focus more on environmental conditions investigating the erosion of wind turbine blades.“We know that wind turbines placed offshore are exposed to more erosion compared to onshore wind turbines. On the ocean, the wind is a major factor. If it is strong wind and heavy rain, then the raindrops hitting the wind turbines erode the blades,” she says and continues:
“It is therefore important to look at, where we should place new wind farms and how to predict the need for repair. Where are the wind turbines exposed to a lot of erosion and where is it better to place turbines? If we look at the DTU V52 wind turbine placed at DTU Risø Campus and assume it operates with similar tip speed as modern offshore turbines, we know that if we place it at Anholt, it takes approximately three years before the blades need repair. If we on the contrary place the turbine in Aalborg, then it takes 13 years, before the blades need repair. That difference in lifetime is due to the rain and wind climate in Anholt causing faster erosion. However, we need more calculations to take this further.”