New survey to produce data for marine energy stakeholders in Ireland

Researchers at Gavin and Doherty Geosolutions (GDG) and University College Cork (UCC) have deployed an acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP) to obtain ocean current data from a location of interest in the Irish Sea that would be made available free of charge to marine energy stakeholders.

This survey is part of a collaboration between Selkie Work Package 5 and an Irish Research Council-funded Ph.D. project and is expected to produce data that could be used to validate a broad range of ocean engineering models.

Selkie project informed that the survey was led by Shauna Creane, who is a Senior Metocean Scientist at GDG and a Ph.D. Candidate at UCC.

Creane will use the data in her sediment transport and geomorphological assessment studies and examine the prospects for the deployment of offshore renewable energy systems in the Irish Sea.

Due to the lack of publicly available current data for Irish waters, this dataset should also prove useful to researchers and developers in the Selkie network who can use the data to validate their own models of marine energy resources or device performance.

The ADCP data is expected to be made available at the end of the first quarter of 2023.

The device, which was chartered from the Marine Institute and deployed from the RV Celtic Explorer in December 2022, is planned to record current speeds and directions at different water depths over a period of 35-42 days near Arklow Bank, County Wicklow.

Once recovered, the data is expected to be processed and made available open-source via a Selkie repository, where it could be accessed and utilized free of charge by marine energy stakeholders.

The Selkie project is a €5.2 million cross-border project aiming to boost the marine energy industry in Wales and Ireland.

Under the auspices of the project, Irish tidal and river energy technology developer Tidal Flyer tested its system at LiR National Ocean Test facility (NOTF), Ireland’s flagship facility for testing and development of offshore technologies, in July 2022.