Abstract. The availability of large amounts of data is starting to impact how the
wind energy community works. From turbine design to plant layout,
construction, commissioning, and maintenance and operations, new
processes and business models are springing up. This is the process of
digitalisation, and it promises improved efficiency and greater insight,
ultimately leading to increased energy capture and significant savings
for wind plant operators, thus reducing the levelised cost of energy.
Digitalisation is also impacting research, where it is both easing and
speeding up collaboration, as well as making research results more
accessible. This is the basis for innovations that can be taken up by
end users. But digitalisation faces barriers. This paper uses a
literature survey and the results from an expert elicitation to identify
three common industry-wide barriers to the digitalisation of wind
energy. Comparison with other networked industries and past and ongoing
initiatives to foster digitalisation show that these barriers can only
be overcome by wide-reaching strategic efforts, and so we see these as
“grand challenges” in the digitalisation of wind energy. They are,
first, creating FAIR data frameworks; secondly, connecting people and data to foster innovation; and finally, enabling collaboration and competition between organisations. The grand challenges in the digitalisation of wind energy thus include a mix of technical, cultural, and business aspects that
will need collaboration between businesses, academia, and government to
solve. Working to mitigate them is the beginning of a dynamic process
that will position wind energy as an essential part of a global clean
energy future.