High resolution monitoring for marine renewable energy

Marine renewable energy technologies have a great potential in supplying clean electricity to millions of people across the globe, if technical and economic conditions are in right. So far, ocean energy projects are commonly started by SMEs or educational institutions with limited budgets. Therefore, any effort to reduce expenses is of great value. One of the areas involving substantial expenses are the inevitable seabed inspection prior to deployment of marine renewable energy device. Detailed seabed inspections can also reduce the risk of associated with deployment of structures on uneven seabed, especially marine renewable energy devices with gravity foundations. By reducing the costs and risks of such surveys prior and during the installation phases, the feasibility of marine renewable energy projects can be more favoured and competitive. In this perspective, this study proposes a cost and time effective technique for seabed surveys. The proposed technique involves the use of high precision and inexpensive sonar systems and underwater optical cameras integrated into a versatile and compact subsea monitoring platform. It also involves simple and practical data acquisition and processing protocols that do not requires hi expertise for operation. The results obtained showed that high resolution bathymetric maps and detailed seabed inspections imagery can be acquired. This study concludes that a simple and inexpensive subsea monitoring platform comprising a multibeam, dual beam and video cameras can be effective for high resolution seabed inspection and bathymetric measurements for marine energy applications.

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Powering the Blue Economy: Exploring Opportunities for Marine Renewable Energy in Various Maritime and Distributed Markets

10.2172/1525367 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Not Given Author

Keyword(s):

Renewable Energy ◽

Marine Renewable Energy ◽

Blue Economy

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A Decision Support Tool for Long-Term Planning of Marine Operations in Ocean Energy Projects

Journal of Marine Science and Engineering ◽

10.3390/jmse9080810 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (8) ◽

pp. 810

Author(s):

Francisco X. Correia da Fonseca ◽

Luís Amaral ◽

Paulo Chainho

Keyword(s):

Renewable Energy ◽

Decision Support ◽

Decision Support Tool ◽

Ocean Energy ◽

Support Tool ◽

Marine Renewable Energy ◽

Marine Energy ◽

Energy Projects ◽

Selection Algorithms ◽

Maritime Infrastructure

Ocean energy is a relevant source of clean renewable energy, and as it is still facing challenges related to its above grid-parity costs, tariffs intended to support in a structured and coherent way are of great relevance and potential impact. The logistics and marine operations required for installing and maintaining these systems are major cost drivers of marine renewable energy projects. Planning the logistics of marine energy projects is a highly complex and intertwined process, and to date, limited advances have been made in the development of decision support tools suitable for ocean energy farm design. The present paper describes the methodology of a novel, opensource, logistic and marine operation planning tool, integrated within DTOceanPlus suite of design tools, and responsible for producing logistic solutions comprised of optimal selections of vessels, port terminals, equipment, as well as operation plans, for ocean energy projects. Infrastructure selection logistic functions were developed to select vessels, ports, and equipment for specific projects. A statistical weather window model was developed to estimate operation delays due to weather. A vessel charter rate modeling approach, based on an in-house vessel database and industry experience, is described in detail. The overall operation assumptions and underlying operating principles of the statistical weather window model, maritime infrastructure selection algorithms, and cost modeling strategies are presented. Tests performed for a case study based a theoretical floating wave energy converter produced results in good agreement with reality.

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Optimising the Operation of Tidal Range Schemes

Energies ◽

10.3390/en12152870 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (15) ◽

pp. 2870 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Jingjing Xue ◽

Reza Ahmadian ◽

Roger Falconer

Keyword(s):

Renewable Energy ◽

Energy Demand ◽

Maximum Energy ◽

Energy Output ◽

Tidal Range ◽

Marine Renewable Energy ◽

Modelling Methodology ◽

Similar Operation ◽

Swansea Bay ◽

The Uk

Marine renewable energy, including tidal renewable energy, is one of the less exploited sources of energy that could contribute to energy demand, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Amongst several proposals to build tidal range structure (TRS), a tidal lagoon has been proposed for construction in Swansea Bay, in the South West of the UK, but this scheme was recently rejected by the UK government due to the high electricity costs. This decision makes the optimisation of such schemes more important for the future. This study proposes various novel approaches by breaking the operation into small components to optimise the operation of TRS using a widely used 0-D modelling methodology. The approach results in a minimum 10% increase in energy output, without the inclusion of pumping, in comparison to the maximum energy output using a similar operation for all tides. This increase in energy will be approximately 25% more when pumping is included. The optimised operation schemes are used to simulate the lagoon operation using a 2-D model and the differences between the results are highlighted.

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