Abstract
The offshore renewable energy sector has challenging requirements related to the physical simulation of the ocean environment for the purpose of evaluating energy generating technologies. In this paper the demands of the wave and tidal energy sectors are considered, with measurement and characterisation of the environment explored and replication of these conditions described. This review examines the process of advanced ocean environment replication from the sea to the tank, and rather than an exhaustive overview of all approaches it follows the rationale behind projects led, or strongly connected to, the late Professor Ian Bryden. This gives an element of commonality to the motivations behind marine data acquisition programmes and the facilities constructed to take advantage of the resulting datasets and findings. This review presents a decade of flagship research, conducted in the United Kingdom, at the interfaces between physical oceanography, engineering simulation tools and industrial applications in the area of offshore renewable energy. Wave and tidal datasets are presented, with particular emphasis on the novel tidal measurement techniques developed for tidal energy characterisation in the Fall of Warness, Orkney, UK. Non-parametric wave spectra characterisation methodologies are applied to the European Marine Energy Centre's (EMEC) Billia Croo wave test site, giving complex and highly realistic site-specific directional inputs for simulation of wave energy sites and converters. Finally, the processes of recreating the resulting wave, tidal, and combined wave-current conditions in the FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility are presented. The common motivations across measurement, characterisation, and test tank are discussed with conclusions drawn on the strengths, gaps and challenges associated with detailed site replication.
Highlights
The technical challenges of data acquisition vary by application, with deep water posing problems due to the large pressures for example, whereas relatively shallow tidal energy sites feature highly oxygenated waters and cyclic loading leading to accelerated corrosion [55]
The advanced replication techniques explored in this paper explore directional wave spectra in high fidelity, with representative sea states derived over multi-year periods to give confidence in extreme sea characterisation and seasonality
The concept of a circular basin with wave and current generation from any direction was originally proposed by Professor Stephen Salter [83] and the design developed under Professor Bryden was inspired by this proposed configuration, with wavemakers forming the outer circumference of the basin and an underfloor recirculating flow drive system to generate current [3]
Summary
Improved fundamental understanding of oceanic and coastal processes, across spatial scales from centimetres to kilometres, and in areas of complex inter-process interaction, is required to accelerate the sustainable exploitation of our seas as an energy resource Recognition of this requirement has led to multiple UK and international research projects being conceived, funded and executed. The work of ReDAPT1 [1,2], FloWave [3,4], and multiple components of the UKCMER SuperGen Marine programme2 [5] are discussed These works are strongly interlinked in terms of their motivation and scope, in no small part due to the involvement and leadership of the late Professor Ian Bryden, whose research interests ranged across the wave and tidal sectors, and from scale testing to full scale deployment. The connection between the work in the sea, at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), and FloWave was remarked upon by Professor Bryden in 2015 upon his departure from the EMEC board, where he noted that “the world's best (by far) full and mid-scale test facility working with the world's best (by far) laboratory
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