| Summary: |
The integration of WECs in port breakwaters represents a realistic solution to set these infrastructures on the right track in terms of balancing environmental challenges with economic demands. Further, authorities and the firms established upon port complexes are faced with the challenge of boosting both their international competitiveness and environmental performance, therefore being a unique industrial ecosystem to analyse what are the societal, environmental and economic impacts of ocean energy.
Most full-scale applications built so far to explore the dual mind-set of wave energy production and sheltering of harbour basins are based on two well studied concepts: the oscillating water column and the overtopping principle. The WEC4Ports project aims the development of a novel hybrid technology for port breakwaters to harvest ocean wave energy, that uses two well understood power generating technologies, air and water turbines. The disruptive approach idealised and developed within SE@PORTS project uses hybridisation to harness the wave energy resource more efficiently over a wider range of wave conditions (wave periods and wave heights), since it combines in a single module the advantages of two different, yet complementary, concepts. WEC4Ports builds on the outcomes of SE@PORTS project (TRL 3/4) and intends to perform further industrial R&D to progress the technology through a TRL 5/6. Further, WEC4Ports focus on the incorporation of the h-WEC in breakwaters, as a means to leverage the overall economics of upfront CAPEX.
The key components and subsystems of this ocean energy device (e.g., turbines), will be built to be demonstrated in the real ocean environment - Mutriku testing site, after being experimentally and numerically designed and optimised. The full-scale testing allows to assess and improve installation, operation and maintenance procedures of these complex power conversion systems as well as to obtain realistic estimations of their performan  |
Summary
The integration of WECs in port breakwaters represents a realistic solution to set these infrastructures on the right track in terms of balancing environmental challenges with economic demands. Further, authorities and the firms established upon port complexes are faced with the challenge of boosting both their international competitiveness and environmental performance, therefore being a unique industrial ecosystem to analyse what are the societal, environmental and economic impacts of ocean energy.
Most full-scale applications built so far to explore the dual mind-set of wave energy production and sheltering of harbour basins are based on two well studied concepts: the oscillating water column and the overtopping principle. The WEC4Ports project aims the development of a novel hybrid technology for port breakwaters to harvest ocean wave energy, that uses two well understood power generating technologies, air and water turbines. The disruptive approach idealised and developed within SE@PORTS project uses hybridisation to harness the wave energy resource more efficiently over a wider range of wave conditions (wave periods and wave heights), since it combines in a single module the advantages of two different, yet complementary, concepts. WEC4Ports builds on the outcomes of SE@PORTS project (TRL 3/4) and intends to perform further industrial R&D to progress the technology through a TRL 5/6. Further, WEC4Ports focus on the incorporation of the h-WEC in breakwaters, as a means to leverage the overall economics of upfront CAPEX.
The key components and subsystems of this ocean energy device (e.g., turbines), will be built to be demonstrated in the real ocean environment - Mutriku testing site, after being experimentally and numerically designed and optimised. The full-scale testing allows to assess and improve installation, operation and maintenance procedures of these complex power conversion systems as well as to obtain realistic estimations of their performances, by combining power matrix with the wave resource. Furthermore, a new material will be tested in site to assess its strength and ability to withstand the harsh marine conditions.
The project will perform further industrial R&D (progress through TRL 5/6) so to: (i) improve technology performance, (ii) perform reliability and survivability assessments of the h-WEC and its components, (iii) optimize breakwater integration to minimizing costs and reduce the LCoE.
WEC4Ports will have a strong focus on fabrication/validation/demonstration of key components in real conditions at Mutriku testing site. The project will perform further industrial R&D to:
* Improve the performance of the hybrid technology (h-WEC);
* Perform reliability and survivability assessments of the h-WEC and its components;
* Optimise breakwater integration to minimizing costs and reduce the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCoE).
WEC4Ports expected impact is to help overcoming barriers and challenges faced by stakeholders on both sides, technology developers (e.g., interested in validating and demonstrating their technologies and interested in learning about specific additional uncertainties and risks) and end-users (e.g., port-authorities that are expected to be open to promoting the use of renewable energy, but express concerns about risks linked to both installation and operation), essential learnings to progress towards commercial deployment and industrial roll-out. Public perception on this critical infrastructure is often negative because of air pollution and other environmental problems, both are expected to improve if such technologies are implemented. |