Leading digital platforms provide wind developers with a new level of data access by bringing together thousands of data layers from different sources in one place and enabling standardisation of data across projects, while providing a high degree of customisability for each use case. Key features developers should look for in their digital platform for best-in-class data access include integrations for accessing specialist data, instant data syncing between team members, and an evolving data offering that responds to user needs.

As a developer, you know you want to start using new digital tools so you can assess and design wind projects in new ways, leading to better projects, developed faster, and with more confidence in your decision-making. A core selection criteria should be the level of data access a digital platform provides. Traditionally, collating data from a range of different sources and ensuring the data inputs are always synchronised across team members is hugely time-consuming for developers—as is attempting to standardise data inputs across projects. Developers like EnBW call the data access in digital platforms like Vind AI ‘transformative’. Here, we dive into the main aspects of data access you, as a developer, should consider when selecting a new digital platform for your wind projects, onshore or offshore.
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1. The built-in data

Your digital platform should give you instant access to leading wind data sources—but the data provided should go way beyond just wind data to include, for example, topography data for onshore projects, bathymetry data for offshore locations and environmental data from national authorities. And of course, not all data is created equal. You should look for a platform that offers the leading data sources you use the most, and that the data is available for your priority markets.

How many in-built data layers should you expect your digital platform to offer? In Vind AI, we bring together more than 4000 data layers, including leading wind data sources such as ERA5, CERRA, NORA3, and Global Wind Atlas. Our data offers global coverage, onshore and offshore, with increased granularity of data for specific markets constantly being added.
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2. Which specialist data integrations are offered

While the built-in data in your digital platform should be sufficient for the majority of early-stage projects, you also want to make sure that the digital platform collaborates with specialist data providers, so that you can easily and directly add specialist data where you need it. The leading digital platforms are connected with providers across both technical and financial data, so that you can access all the data you need to develop a business case in one place.

At Vind AI, our first collaborations include Norconsult’s Kjeller Vindteknikk’s local wind data, DTU (the Technical University of Denmark)’s WAsP predicted climate data and Thema’s electricity price data, with many more to come.
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3. User-friendly integration of your existing data

As a developer, you will also have a lot of existing data and tools that you want to use for assessing and designing your new wind projects. Your digital platform should be designed to work well with your preferred existing tools and support you in using this data in your analysis—either by making it easy to upload your existing data, or even better, integrating it automatically with APIs.

At Vind AI, we built our digital platform with an API-first architecture, making it easy to integrate with your existing systems. For example, you can easily centralise all the GIS data you need for your wind projects, onshore or offshore, anywhere in the world. Simply connect to external geospatial data sources directly, including 4C Offshore, and any other public service with an ArcGIS rest api, WMS, WFS or WMTS. Once set up, you can browse all layers from the connection in the GIS Library, add and sync only the layers you need from the source, and share the relevant layers with the people in your project team who need access. Every time you use it, data is fetched directly from the source, ensuring your data is always up to date.

You can, of course, also upload files with your existing data directly in Vind AI, for example, your technical data on turbines or wind data in Vortex format.
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4. Designed to standardise data across multiple projects

Beyond ensuring you can easily access all the new and existing data you need, your digital platform should let you store your data in a central repository. Why? A central store of all data facilitates standardisation across your wind projects. With your data safely stored in one place, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time—and you don’t have to constantly chase down colleagues for data and information for each new wind project.

With Vind AI’s Library feature, you can store, manage, and share various company resources like technical data on turbines, foundations and cables, wake settings and financial assumptions, and GIS layers, while flexibly managing user access control. EnBW’s offshore wind team is one of our users who sees Vind AI’s Library functionality as transformative in terms of time saved.

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5. Level of customisability for data access

Different team members may need varying levels of data access. To ensure your data is efficiently and safely managed, your digital platform of choice should be designed for flexible user access, giving each team member uninterrupted access to the data they need, without drowning in data that is not relevant to them.

Customisability of data access is also particularly valuable for offshore wind projects where multiple developers work in partnership. Your digital platform should leave you feeling confident that you are retaining sensitive data within your company, while sharing what’s relevant with your partners.

In Vind AI, user access to data is highly customisable, and we work continuously with our users to ensure the granularity of the customisation meets the user's needs.
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6. Live syncing of data across your team

Once you have all the data you need in your digital platform, you want to ensure that the platform synchronises any data changes live across users, so that each of your team members can ensure that they are always working with the latest data. Live sync of data enables parallel working, a huge time-saver for developers.

Vind AI offers real-time updates and version control, so your team always works on the latest version, eliminating errors caused by outdated files. Statkraft is one of our users who holds up improved collaboration and parallel working as a game-changing aspect of using Vind AI.

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7. An ever-evolving approach to data access

And lastly, you should look out for features that are not available yet. The data relevant for wind projects is constantly changing and improving, and at an organisational level, which data and integrations you need may also change over time. Your digital platform should therefore take a dynamic approach to its data offerings, including integrations.

At Vind AI, we are constantly adding new data layers in response to user needs. The same applies to our integrations: Our APIs are designed with flexibility in mind, allowing you to tailor them to your unique workflows and requirements. We understand that every organisation has specific challenges, and we are continuously improving and expanding our capabilities. If there is a workflow you need support for, we are eager to collaborate with you to explore and implement a suitable solution. By working together, we can ensure that our APIs meet the evolving needs of your operations.