A comparison of the performance of different wind turbines at different locations is made by standardizing the annual energy supply to the rated output of the wind turbines. Thus, the number of equivalent full load hours calculated in this way depends significantly on the power characteristic curve of the wind turbine under consideration and the site conditions. Offshore, significantly higher full load hours are achieved than onshore. In its first year of operation, the first commercial German OWP alpha ventus achieved almost 4500 full load hours, almost three times as many full load hours as average onshore wind turbines.

Tracking the annual operating results of offshore wind farms is only possible to a limited extent as the operators usually do not publish the yield data. Indirectly, wind farm-related estimates are possible, such as those published in the "Energy Charts" of Fraunhofer ISE [Energy Charts]. The following figure uses these data, which are originally given for different power plant types as "percentage full load" - corresponding to capacity factors - and presents them as full load hours for the years 2016 to 2018 for selected offshore wind farms. The best results are achieved by the wind farms DanTysk (Ø 4506 h) and Sandbank (Ø 4205 h) in the North Sea and Baltic 1 & 2 (Ø 3872 h) in the Baltic Sea.

Full load hours 2016- 2018 of selected OWP calculated according to [Energy Charts]