Wind energy is now Europe's largest source of renewable electricity, accounting for over a third of all renewable generation. The EU aims to install 10 GW of new onshore wind per year from 2025 and reach 150 GW of offshore capacity in the North Sea alone by 2050. Meeting those targets requires placing turbines in the right locations, building them efficiently, and keeping them running for decades.
Each of those steps depends on understanding wind. Wind speeds vary significantly from year to year and from site to site. In 2021, parts of northwestern and central Europe experienced their lowest annual average wind speeds since at least 1979. Developers choosing sites, banks financing projects, and operators scheduling maintenance all need reliable, long-term data on wind variability, not just averages but the full picture of how conditions fluctuate across seasons and years.
Offshore, the challenge compounds. Wave height and wind speed determine when technicians can transfer to turbines, when jack-up barges can operate, and how much power a farm produces. Climate change could shift these conditions over a wind farm's 25-year operational life, affecting both revenues and maintenance costs in ways that current planning may not account for.
[Image: Map of seven European offshore locations modelled for wind farm O&M under climate change scenarios. Credit: JBA Consulting/C3S]
How EO can help
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) produces ERA5, a global climate reanalysis covering 1950 to the present with hourly estimates of atmospheric, land, and ocean variables. For wind energy, ERA5 provides consistent, long-term records of wind speed, direction, and variability at various heights, filling gaps where ground measurements do not exist. This data can be downscaled to resolutions as fine as 100 metres, detailed enough for individual farm design.
For longer-term planning, C3S climate projections model how wind speed, wave height, and other relevant variables are expected to change under different emissions scenarios out to 2100. These projections let developers and operators stress-test investment decisions against plausible climate futures.
Together, the reanalysis and projection datasets cover the full lifecycle of a wind farm: site selection, design optimisation, installation scheduling, operational forecasting, maintenance planning, and climate resilience assessment.
Key examples
Example 1: Vortex and wind farm site selection (Europe-wide)
Barcelona-based Vortex, a wind resource modelling company, takes ERA5 reanalysis data (at a base resolution of 25 km) and runs it through a high-resolution weather model combined with local topography data to produce wind resource assessments at 100-metre resolution. The result: detailed wind maps suitable for choosing turbine locations and designing farm layouts, even where no local measurements exist.
Vortex calculated that using C3S reanalysis data reduced wind speed estimation error by 3-4% compared with other reanalysis products, a meaningful improvement when small errors translate into large differences in projected energy yield and revenue. The company is active across northwestern Europe, including the German market where onshore wind expansion is a national priority.
Vortex's spin-off, ClimateScale, uses C3S climate model data to provide on-demand climate change projections globally, helping the wind industry identify how conditions at planned sites may shift over coming decades.
Example 2: Lautec ESOX tool for offshore installation planning
Lautec's ESOX tool uses ERA5 wind and wave data to help offshore operators identify the most cost-effective installation setup and calculate realistic timelines. It can estimate how long it will take to install turbines offshore and which months are best for blade repair, allowing operators to schedule work around weather windows and reduce costly delays.
Example 3: JBA Consulting and offshore climate resilience (European waters)
British environmental consultancy JBA Consulting used C3S data provided by Dutch research institute Deltares to model the operations and maintenance of a typical 100-turbine, 1 GW offshore wind farm at seven locations across European waters. The study compared conditions across three periods: the recent past (1977-2003), the near future (2041-2070), and the far future (2071-2100).
The findings were broadly reassuring: wave height and wind speed are both projected to decrease very slightly over the next 80 years in European waters. Current construction and maintenance methods are likely to remain viable. But the study also flagged that even small changes in wind speed affect energy yield, and therefore revenue, meaning climate projections should be factored into financial calculations for long-lived offshore assets.
