Biofouling, the accumulation of marine organisms on submerged surfaces, presents a significant challenge to the design, performance, and maintenance of offshore wind turbines (OWTs). This work synthesizes current knowledge on the physical and operational impacts of biofouling on OWT marine substructures, with a particular focus on how it alters hydrodynamic loading, increases drag and mass, and affects fatigue and structural response. Drawing from experimental studies, computational modeling, and real-world observations, this paper highlights the critical need to integrate biofouling effects into design practices. Additionally, emerging mitigation strategies are explored, including advanced antifouling materials and AI-driven monitoring systems, which offer promising solutions for long-term biofouling management. By addressing both engineering and ecological perspectives, this paper underscores the importance of developing robust, adaptive approaches to biofouling that can support the durability, reliability, and environmental sustainability of the offshore wind industry.

This paper presents the main parts in the Copernicus Program and how it supports the offshore wind sector through its satellite missions, reanalysis and other marine and climate products and services. Data from Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-6, together with CMEMS, C3S and CLMS datasets, provide consistent observations of wind, waves, sea level, currents and coastal conditions that are widely used for site selection, design assessment, operations and environmental monitoring. Additionally, current limitations are highlighted, including reduced accuracy in near-coastal areas, gaps in in situ measurements and the need for greater user expertise. At the same time, emerging technologies like AI-based processing, cloud platforms and Digital Twins are creating new ways to enhance data accessibility and practical use. To date, no comprehensive review has been published addressing the application of Copernicus data in the offshore wind sector, and the available information is dispersed across multiple references. The goal of this review is to identify successful application cases, flag limitations and highlight emerging trends in the Copernicus data usage in the offshore wind energy sector. Overall, the findings show that Copernicus is becoming an increasingly valuable framework for improving the efficiency, reliability and sustainability of offshore wind development.

This work presents the development of new OpenFOAM libraries that extend existing linear spring–damper models to incorporate nonlinear translational and rotational restraints in a 6-DOF rigid-body analysis case. The implementation allows arbitrary stiffness and damping relationships to be defined through analytical models, such as Duffing and Rayleigh formulations, or via user-specified interpolation tables. The libraries are embedded directly into the 6-DOF rigid body motion solver, enabling fluid–structure interaction simulations considering nonlinear dynamic oscillations, without relying on external structural solvers. Numerical verification against central difference schemes, analytical models, and preCICE-coupled OpenFOAM– CalculiX simulations demonstrates good agreement for linear and nonlinear single-DOF systems, with only minor deviations in amplitude response. Application cases, including wind-induced oscillations of airfoils and galloping of a 3:2 prism, further illustrate the ability of the libraries to capture nonlinear structural dynamics within realistic flow conditions. The proposed implementation extends the existing approach and provides an efficient and flexible framework for investigating nonlinear aeroelastic phenomena and energy harvesting concepts, modelling the dynamic system as a nonlinear 6-DOF system in OpenFOAM.