Offshore wind energy is a sustainable renewable energy source that is acquired by harnessing the force of the wind offshore, where the absence of obstructions allows the wind to travel at higher and more steady speeds. Offshore wind has recently grown in popularity because wind energy is more powerful offshore than on land. Prior to the development of floating structures, wind turbines could not be deployed in particularly deep or complicated seabed locations since they were dependent on fixed structures. With the advent of floating structures, which are moored to the seabed using flexible anchors, chains, or steel cables, wind turbines can now be placed far offshore. The deployment of floating wind turbines in deep waters is encouraged by several benefits, including steadier winds, less visual impact, and flexible acoustic noise requirements. A thorough understanding of the physics underlying the dynamic response of the floating offshore wind turbines, as well as various design principles and analysis methods, is necessary to fully compete with traditional energy sources such as fossil fuels. The present work offers a comprehensive review of the most recent state-of-the-art developments in the offshore wind turbine technology, including aerodynamics, hydromechanics, mooring, ice, and inertial loads. The existing design concepts and numerical models used to simulate the complex wind turbine dynamics are also presented, and their capabilities and limitations are discussed in detail.

Lake Ontario, the smallest in surface area among the Great Lakes, is the last lake in the Great Lakes' hydrologic chain. In this study, Lake Ontario's marine renewable energy resources are characterized. The historical wave records reveal up to 8 m significant wave heights in Lake Ontario's eastern basin. Furthermore, the lake's historical water level data indicate that storm surges can get as large as 1 m near Port Weller and Burlington. The storms of November 13, 2003, and January 30, 2008, are estimated to produce a total theoretical potential energy of ~25 GWh. The lake-wide monthly mean wave power for the selected year 2011 is at its peak in October and November, exceeding 10 kW/m. On the other hand, it is estimated to be around 1 kW/m during late spring and summer. The present work is part of an extensive study attempting to characterize marine renewable energy resources for the entire Great Lakes and follows the recently published works on Lake Erie and Lake Michigan (Farhadzadeh et al., 2017; Velioglu Sogut et al., 2018). It is also the first study elaborating on the characterization of Lake Ontario's marine renewable energy resources.