Context

Farm architecture, electrical infrastructure, operation, maintenance, mooring lines and foundations, as well as installation and logistics, represent major challenges that must be addressed before the ocean energy sector can consider the commercialisation stage. While the current conditions are acceptable for the development phase (prototype testing), they are not yet acceptable for the deployment of medium and large-scale farms. Not overlooking the design complexities brought about by the scale of the farm or not properly understand the economic and environmental impacts can have significant consequences for the overall project.

Objectives

• To accelerate the industrial development of knowledge related to wave and tidal energy production.
• To provide design tools for the deployment of the first generation of ocean energy systems.

Scientific and technical contents

• Characterisation of the hydrodynamic interaction between the turbines of a farm and its effects on the resource, performance, cost and environmental impact.
• Definition of the technically and economically optimal configurations of the offshore power grid.
• Development of models providing recommendations in terms of mooring lines and foundations.
• Design of optimal logistical solutions for the construction, installation, operation and dismantling phases of farms.
• Identification, adaptation and development of methods for the operational optimisation of farm architecture.

Resources

Released tools

• DTOcean 2.0 – Software suite | Tutorials | Manual
• DTOcean 1.0 – Software suite | Tutorials

Public deliverables (PDF)

• Deliverable D2.1 – Assessment of capabilities of available tools
• Deliverable D2.4 – Algorithms providing effects of array changes on economics
• Deliverable D2.5 – Uncertainties and environmental impact dependencies on array changes
• Deliverable D3.1 – State-of-the-art assessment and specification of data requirements for electrical system architectures
• Deliverable D4.1 – A comprehensive assessment of the applicability of available and proposed offshore mooring and foundation technologies and design tools for array applications
• Deliverable D4.2 – Specific requirements for MRE foundation analysis
• Deliverable D4.5 – Mooring and foundation module framework for DTOcean tool
• Deliverable D4.6 – Framework for the prediction of the reliability, economic and environmental criteria and assessment methodologies for Moorings and foundations
• Deliverable D5.1 – Methodology report and logistic model flow charts
• Deliverable D5.2 – Characterization of logistic requirements
• Deliverable D5.5 – Logistic model for ocean energy arrays
• Deliverable D5.6 – Report on logistical model for ocean energy and considerations
• Deliverable D6.1 – Best practice guidelines for offshore array monitoring and control with consideration of offshore wind and oil & gas experiences
• Deliverable D6.2 – Evaluation according to costs, downtimes, etc. of different maintenance strategies
• Deliverable D6.6 – Report on environmental impacts of O&M
• Deliverable D7.1 – Requirements and criteria for the design and planning of ocean energy farms

Scientific publications

• Duarte R., et al. (2018) Development of an Environmental Impact Assessment Module (EIAM) in the DTOcean project. International Conference on Ocean Energy, Cherbourg, France, 12/06/2018 – 14/06/2018
• Karimirad K. & Koushan K. (2016) WindWEC: Combining Wind and Wave Energy Inspired by Hywind and Wavestar. International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications 2016, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 20/11/2016 – 23/11/2016
• Weller S.D., et al. (2015) Reducing Reliability Uncertainties for Marine Renewable Energy. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, Vol. 3, pp. 1349-1361
• Karimirad M., et al. (2014) Applicability of offshore mooring and foundation technologies for marine renewable energy (MRE) device arrays. International Conference on Renewable Energies Offshore 2014, Lisbon, Portugal, 24/11/2014 – 26/11/2014
• Teillant B., et al. (2014) A methodology for the development of a numerical tool for the lifecycle logistics of ocean energy arrays. International Conference on Ocean Energy 2014, Halifax, Canada, 04/11/2014 – 06/11/2014

Partners and funding

This project was led by the University of Edinburgh.

The total project budget was €5,372K.

This project receives/received funding from the European Union’s FP7 programme.

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