Offshore wind power production in the North Sea

Offshore wind is considered to be a main source of clean energy, providing up to half of global electricity needs, and there are large plans for the scale-up of offshore wind. However, despite the plans for scale-up, there are large disparities in estimates of power potentials. One reason for this disparity is too simplified treatments of wind wakes. A thorough understanding of energy budgets within wind farms is needed to improve the estimates of power potential and energy usage. In this respect, actual data on power generation in existing wind farms are highly valuable. This dataset contains half-hourly data on power production in 31 wind farms in the North Sea for the years 2020 to 2024. The data is used to analyze the energy budget of wind farms in the North Sea (see https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321528). The data is downloaded from the Elexon BMRS data marked "Actual Generation Output Per Generation Unit (B1610)", but is free to copy, publish, adapt, distribute, and transmit.

Methods
The data is downloaded from the Elexon BMRS API. The data gives the actual metered volume output (MWh) per half hour. The name of the csv files gives the name of the wind farm that produced the power. The csv files contain date and time in the first column and power production in MWh in the second column. The time in the first column gives the end time of the half-hour over which the power production is accumulated. 

Downloading data from Elexon for a specific wind farm requires that you download data from the bmUnits that belong to this wind farm.  Power production given by the bmUnits is summed up to get the power production of the wind farm. The data in the csv file for a wind farm is the sum of the bmUnit that belong to this wind farm. The bmUnits for the wind farms in this dataset is as follows:

Hornea Two: HOWBO-1, HOWBO-2, HOWBO-3
Hornsea One: HOWAO-1, HOWAO-2, HOWAO-3
Seagreen: SGRWO-1, SGRWO-2, SHRWO-3, SGRWO-4, SGRWO-5, SGRWO-6
Moray East: MOWEO-1, MOWEO-2, MOWEO-3
Triton Knoll: KNEW-1, TKNWW-1
East Anglia One: EAAO-1, EAAO-2
Walney Extension: WLNYO-3, WLNYO-4
London Array: LARYO-1, LARYO-2, LARYO-3, LARYO-4
Beatrice: BEATO-1, BEATO-2, BEATO-3, BEATO-4
Gwynt y Mor: GYMRO-15, GYMRO-17, GYMRO-26, GYMRO-28
RaceBank: RCBKO-1, RCBKO-2
Greater Gabbard: GRGBW-1, GRGBW-2, GRGBW-3
Dudgeon: DDGNO-1, DDGNO-2, DDGNO-3, DDGNO-4
West of Duddon Sands: WDNSO-1, WDNSO-2
Galloper: GAOFO-1, GAOFO-2, GAOFO-3, GAOFO-4
Sheringham Shoals: SHRSW-1, SHRSW-2
Lincs: LNCSO-1, LNCSO-2
Burbo Bank Extension: BRBEO-1
Humber Gateway: HMGTO-1, HMGTO-2
Westernmost Rough: WTMSO-1
Walney 1: WLNYW-1
Walney 2: WLNYO-2
Robin Rigg: RREW-1, RRWW-1
Gunfleet Sands: GNFSW-1, GNFSW-2
Ormonde: OMNDO-1
Aberdeen: ABRBO-1
Burbo Bank: BURBW-1
Barrow: BOWLW-1
Kincardine: KINCW-1
Hywind Scotland: HYWDW-1

Contains BMRS data © Elexon Limited copyright and database right [2023]. See the license to use BMRS open data at https://www.elexon.co.uk/data/balancing-mechanism-reporting-agent/copyright-licence-bmrs-data/.