The RiaSoR workshop last week gathered a number of marine energy engineers and academics who discussed the reliability methodologies for ocean energy.
Held at the Technology and Innovation Centre at Strathclyde University, the workshop aimed to educate engineers on the use of ocean-energy-focused variance mode and effect analysis methodology (VMEA) to improve reliability in the design of wave and tidal energy devices and test programs.
Reliability in a Sea of Risk (RiaSoR) project has established guidelines detailing industry best practice in reliability testing for wave and tidal energy devices through improved load measurements and verification.
An approved reliability methodology framework arising from the project will be published later in December 2016, according to the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC).
Commenting on the workshop, Raul Rodrigue z, Head of Marine and Offshore Engineering at Tecnalia, said: “It was great to hear from experts and from academia about real operations experience from the industry and test sites. I had some good discussions with the other delegates and facilitators from the project over the two days and I feel some synergies with current Horizon 2020 projects like OPERA can come from further collaboration.
“I would be interested to see something similar repeated in the near future and look forward to reviewing the deliverables from the project.”
The project represents a collaborative effort between EMEC and the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, both based in the UK, and SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden.
Pär Johannesson from SP Technical Research Institute said: “VMEA is a flexible tool that can be used from the initial design phase with limited access to data, and to full system analysis. We’ve amended this for the use of the ocean energy industry to de-risk the uncertainty of failures in structural, electrical and connection elements for marine energy converters, with the ultimate aim of lowering the levelised cost of energy for the sector and instigate investment in the sector.”
The RiaSoR project is funded by the Ocean Energy European Research Area Network (OCEANERA-NET) First Joint Call 2014, in association with Scottish Enterprise, InnovateUK and Swedish Energy Agency.