In the framework of offshore wind energy development, wind resource mapping is essential. An accurate wind resource knowledge allows a better sitting of wind turbines and thus improve their energy yield. A kilometer-scale mapping of offshore wind energy resource is needed by offshore wind industry. Such a resolution can not be achieved through the use of a single data source. In this paper, we describe a data fusion method taking advantage of the high spatial resolution of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) measurements and the high temporal resolution of other data sources involving scatterometer retrievals. The aim of the fusion method is to generate a synthetic data set allying the high temporal resolution of scatterometers and the high spatial resolution of SAR. In this study, we use SAR measurements onboard ENVISAT. The high temporal resolution data used in this study are issued from an optimal interpolation of scatterometer measurements and other remotely sensed data. This wind product is available at IFREMER. Its spatial resolution is of 25 km and one wind field is available every 6 hours. The fusion method is applied to the northern coasts of the French region of Brittany to obtain an assessment of the mean power density available over this area. The resulting wind fields derived from fusion method provide significant improvements in terms of spatial resolution compared to IFREMER and ECMWF products.
