Advancing Offshore Renewable Energy in the Mediterranean Sea: Digital-Med, a Project for Integrating Resource Assessment and Decision Support

The Digital-Med project addresses the growing need for reliable and accessible data to support the development of offshore renewable energy technologies, with a particular emphasis on offshore wind farms in the Mediterranean Sea. The initiative focuses on creating a digital platform that integrates both numerical datasets from large-scale reanalysis models and experimental data gathered through in situ measurement campaigns at selected sites in southern Italy. These sites will host advanced instrumentation, including LIDAR for wind profiling, Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers for measuring waves and currents, surface buoys for real-time monitoring, hydrophones for assessing underwater noise, and CTD probes for environmental observations. The platform will combine these heterogeneous datasets into a unified system, providing both raw and processed information to facilitate environmental characterization, technology evaluation, and decision-making. Through a user-oriented web interface, it will offer functionalities such as GIS-based spatial analysis, resource assessment under present and future scenarios, technology performance estimation, and economic evaluation. By bridging experimental evidence and digital infrastructure, Digital Med will reduce uncertainties in site selection and system design, promote sustainable marine spatial planning, and support the deployment of offshore renewable energy in the Mediterranean, contributing to the broader goals of the European energy transition.