The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) lidar buoy loan program provides opportunities for the wind industry and other interested parties to apply to use the lidar buoys for resource characterization.

The wind industry and the research and development community have indicated that the lack of offshore wind resource data is a major barrier to the development of offshore wind energy in the United States. DOE has made a significant investment in lidar buoys—as well as their deployment—in an effort to reduce this barrier. The buoy loan program is an opportunity for DOE and organizations with an interest in offshore wind energy to work together, both to provide valuable offshore data to the community, and to focus the data collection on areas of acknowledged high priority.

The objectives of the buoy loan program are to:

• Keep the buoys mostly at sea, collecting data valuable to the wind energy industry.
• Provide excellent resource characterization through multiple seasons at each deployment site.
• Provide free access to all data collected by the buoys to the wind industry, research communities, and any other interested parties.
• Operate the program in a way that is responsive both to industry data needs and to DOE programmatic objectives.
• Structure the buoy loan program so that it is sustainable and beneficial for the lifetime of the buoys.

DOE will proactively work with interested parties to lend its lidar buoys. The loan program framework is based on the assumption that borrowing partners will deploy the buoys for approximately one year to support data collection and analysis over an annual weather cycle. Borrowers will assume complete responsibility for the funding, pre-deployment lidar validation, deployment logistics, maintenance, and safe retrieval of each buoy while their loan is active. They will be required to return the buoy to DOE in the same functional condition in which they received it. DOE will not provide funds to the borrowers to support their proposed deployment. Finally, data collected from the meteorological and ocean sensors will be made available for public access.

DOE may periodically announce opportunities through a public Request for Applications. Interested qualified parties will be encouraged to prepare applications for consideration. Applications will be reviewed, scored, and the selected partner will be invited to negotiate bailment agreements for the loan.

More Information

The lidar buoy program is funded by DOE's Wind Energy Technologies Office. The buoys are owned by DOE and managed by PNNL as part of PNNL's wind energy portfolio.