Marine-i event sheds light on wave energy reliability

Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, a Marine-i delivery partner, ran an event earlier in April where wave energy device developers from across the globe were introduced to the latest techniques set to radically improve the reliability of wave energy farms.

The Discovery Room Event was attended by 16 specialists in wave energy field, including companies that are currently developing new wave energy technologies. ORE Catapult’s engineer, Othmane El Mountassir, led the session, supported by Tessa Gordelier, Research Fellow from the University of Exeter.

El Mountassir shared findings from the latest phase of Reliability in a Sea of Risk (RiaSoR) project designed to improve the reliability of wave energy converters, while Gordelier gave a presentation of the latest findings on condition monitoring of offshore mooring systems for wave devices.

As reported earlier, the latest phase of the RiaSoR project aims to establish a practical, condition-based monitoring platform to prepare for future arrays, where big data processing will be vital to drive down operational expenditure.

Following presentations and discussion, the main conclusions from the day boiled down to several topics, including:

Volume of data

Due to the vast amounts of data that condition monitoring systems can collect, key decisions need to be taken about data compression, on or off the device, in order to gather this data. There needs to be highly robust communications, including very reliable data transmission links and sophisticated hardware.

Standards

Industry standards are still in the process of being developed for marine renewables. It may, therefore, be valuable to help drive standardisation in the supply chain to have a wave developer forum to look at more detailed issues, such data management, electrical architecture, and moorings.

Communications channels

With the large amount of data that is being gathered, it will be important to separate out critical, warning, and scientific sensor communications.

ORE Catapult will deliver an update to the wave sector on RiaSoR in fall 2018 and also develop a training manual for the sector as part of the project, the UK’s innovation center for tidal, wave and offshore wind technologies informed.