Marine generator project to estimate renewable energy yields
Friday 30 October 2009
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| The ETI project aims to produce software to help calculate wave strengths and power generation |
An £8 million project to develop software which can estimate the average annual energy production of a wave or tidal farm has been approved in the hope of encouraging investment in the sector, writes Rachael Meredith.
The "performance assessment of wave and tidal array systems" (PerAWaT) project, launched by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) today (October 30 2009), aims to reduce the uncertainty and investment risk faced by project developers when planning large scale wave and tidal energy schemes by predicting the performance of generator arrays.
ETI is a UK-based company formed from the private and public sector and says that it "brings together projects and partnerships that create affordable, reliable, clean energy for heat, power and transport". The company launched a marine programme in December 2007 aiming to increase deployment in the sector.
After inviting expressions of interest for companies to develop technology to help reach this goal, the PerWaT project - led by renewable energy technical and engineering consultancy Garrad Hassan - was awarded £8 million in funding from the ETI to develop a series of models to predict the performance of wave and tidal stream generator arrays.
The Garrad Hassan-led project includes EDF Energy, EON, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Oxford, Queen's University Belfast and the University of Manchester
There is currently no software package or validated method of estimating the average annual energy production of a wave or tidal stream energy farm and the expected benefits of the project were highlighted by ETI chief executive, Dr David Clarke.
Uncertainty
Dr Clarke said: "Although the UK has huge marine potential, investment is being held back by uncertainty about the overall costs involved and the potential returns on investment in wave and tidal technologies. This project will deliver greatly improved modelling tools to provide more accurate forecasting of energy yields and reduce the uncertainty and investment risk faced by project developers when planning large scale wave and tidal energy schemes."
Chief exectuive of ETI Dr David Clarke has emphasised the need for the wave technology
He added that the project would build on existing knowledge to "accelerate the development of sophisticated tools that will become essential as the marine energy industry matures" arguing that "no single company or university would be capable of doing this work alone. The ETI has played a key role in bringing together a consortium of experts to deliver this critical work. It is an important step to unlocking the considerable potential of marine energy."
The ETI's six private members are BP, Caterpillar, EDF Energy, E.ON, Rolls-Royce and Shell. The ETI's public funds are received from the Department for Business Innovation and Skills through the Technology Strategy Board and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). These organisations, together with the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), are engaged directly in the ETI's strategy and programme development.
Funding
The £8 million funding for the PerAWaT project was provided by the institute. ETI's money is made up of 50% private sector funding and 50% government funding.
Garrad Hassan Marine Renewables group leader, Dr Robert Rawlinson-Smith, added: " The ETI core objective of accelerating the commercial deployment of energy technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions will be addressed by this project as it will both establish and validate numerical models capable of predicting the performance of wave & tidal energy converters (WECs and TECs) when operating in arrays."
Dr Rawlinson-Smith continued: "Once established, the models will enhance levels of confidence in the design of WEC and TEC arrays and therefore accelerate their large scale deployment. By accelerating deployment rates the project will directly address the ETI Marine Programme outcome goal of increasing deployment to 2GW by 2020 and 30GW by 2050."
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