• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.841-847
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• 2018

Since global energy consumption and demand for energy have dramatically risen, a focus on environmental problems and sustainability has become more important. Clean and renewable energy sources such as offshore wind power generation have received attention among new renewable energy options as alternative energy resources. Due to maintenance and operational perspectives, offshore wind farms have been planned for installation in many coastal waters. However, development of offshore wind farms faces interference from existing maritime traffic along the planned areas. In order to safely and effectively govern marine traffic in the vicinity of wind farms and inner areas, standard criteria are suggested to allow vessels to sail the internal waters of offshore wind farm areas. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to establish allowable criteria for sailing vessels and safety zones for offshore wind farms by investigating the local regulations of various offshore wind farm cases overseas. The commended inner safety zone of wind farms is proposed to be a distance of 150 % of the rotation diameter of the wind turbine rotor and a distance of 200 m from the outer wind turbine for the outer safety zone. Besides this, the allowable criteria for sailing vessels within a wind farm is proposed to have an air draft of 14.47 m south-west wind farm sea areas for a minimum margin to avoid hull contact through evaluation of the tide and height of a wind turbine. further studies will be needed to establish vessel sailing criteria among adjacent offshore wind farms as well as vessel sailing criteria within a single offshore wind farm.