Meteo-oceanographic simulations and observations to assess the potential of offshore wind farm in a NW Mediterranean shelf

Renewable marine energy is important in squeezed Mediterranean coastal zones. Wind turbines deployed over the narrow Catalan continental shelf require accurate wind/wave/current fields for a reliable design, operation and maintenance. This paper presents the large (comparative to other open sea areas) errors in meteo-oceanographic predictions for semi enclosed domains such as the coastal sea off the Ebro Delta coast. The emphasis is on the sequence of high resolution coupled and nested models and the role of in situ collocated measurements for calibration and validation.