FLOW consortium

The FLOW program was started in 2009 by the Dutch companies and institutes Essent-RWE, Eneco, TenneT, Ballast Nedam, Van Oord, IHC Merwede, 2-B Energy, XEMC Darwind, TNO and TU Delft. The partners wrote a business plan that enables Dutch companies to take a leading position in the international market of offshore wind farms. Apart from the opportunities for employment, the Dutch government wants to reach the target for renewable energy (14% in 2020) using the growth of offshore wind farms. The foal of the FLOW program is to reduce cost of energy for far offshore wind by 20% in 2015 (with respect to 2010). The knowledge of and experience with farms far offshore in deep waters are limited. FLOW wants to increase the reliability of these wind farms, speed up the developments and at the same time reduce costs and risks.

The meteorological mast IJmuiden is a first step reaching these goals. The mast is installed by Van Oord and owned by RWE. TNO is responsible for mounting the measurement equipment, run the measurement campaign, manage the data and make it publicly available.