Reliability of Marine Energy Converters

Reducing Reliability Uncertainties for Marine Renewable Energy

Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) are a widely used metric of technology maturity and risk for marine renewable energy (MRE) devices. To-date, a large number of device concepts have been proposed which have reached the early validation stages of development (TRLs 1–3). Only a handful of mature designs have attained pre-commercial development status following prototype sea trials (TRLs 7–8). In...

The guide of Marine Frequency Converters

Operational issues surrounding the use of towing tanks for performance quantification of marine current energy converters

Towing tanks are being utilised far more frequently for the performance quantification of Marine Current Energy Converters (MCECs) due to their relatively low cost and ease of use. In this paper a number of issues are addressed that arose during a series of experimental campaigns investigating the performance of both static and dynamic MCEC models. These include the lack of ambient turbulence, ...

Shaping array design of marine current energy converters through scaled experimental analysis

Marine current energy converters or tidal turbines represent an emerging renewable energy technology that can provide a predictable supply of electricity. Single devices are in operation around the world with aspirations to deploy farms or arrays of multiple devices. We present an experimental study that has characterised the downstream wake flow around a 1/15thscale turbine in a large circulat...

The downstream wake response of marine current energy converters operating in shallow tidal flows

This paper presents findings from an experimental study investigating the downstream wake response from marine current energy convertors operating in various degrees of vertical flow constraint. The paper investigates deep vertically unconstrained sites, mid-depth sites and there is a particular emphasis on shallow tidal stream sites. Shallow tidal resources could be utilised for the deployment...