Comparative study of offshore winds and wind energy production derived from multiple scatterometers and met buoys

Wind resource assessment is a challenging task where the availability of offshore Met buoys is limited. Satellite remote sensing provides the best alternative inexpensive data and fills the data gaps by providing a huge volume of data for extended periods. However, due to the availability of multiple satellite scatterometers, the assessment of such resources from any single scatterometer would lead to inconsistency. The present article provides an extensive comparison of four scatterometers namely QuikSCAT, OSCAT, ASCAT-A and ASCAT-B with long-term in-situ wind datasets over the North Indian Ocean. Results show that the QuikSCAT and the OSCAT wind data have a lesser bias with the range of 0.15 m/s (2.4%) to 0.83 m/s (15.1%) before adjustments. For adjusting the satellite wind speeds, linear regression was used. Further, the synergetic approach of linear regression adjustments and the combination of scatterometer data have resulted in smaller differences. The absolute deviation in mean wind speed between co-located buoy data and combined scatterometer data is less of the order 2.1%, and the mean power density showed a difference of 2.5%. The study revealed that the combined scatterometer datasets would help in the accurate assessments of wind resource rather than a single scatterometer. •Detailed comparative analysis on the performance of multiple scatterometers' derived winds.•Quantitative comparison of individual scatterometer winds with in-situ buoy data.•Proposed linear regression error adjustment techniques to improve the scatterometer wind data.•Generated a synergetic scatterometer dataset useful for offshore wind resource assessment.