Researchers from the Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP) plan to recover a mooring with monitoring equipment which has been collecting data for the ongoing hydrokinetic energy study.
The mooring, equipped with an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) and Shallow Water Ice Profiler (SWIP), has been collecting river current and ice flow data from Kvichak River in Alaska throughout the 2016/17 winter.
The project was funded by the US Department of Energy and conducted in coordination with an ongoing hydrokinetic energy study carried out by Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC).
The data collected will be used to improve the understanding of the interaction between frazil ice and hydrokinetic devices, and support ORPC’s efforts to deploy RivGen system in the Kvichak River in Igiugig village year round, according to Alaska Hydrokinetic Energy Research Center (AHERC).
“The devices are being removed as the project has ended and stored data needs to be recovered. In addition to the mooring, onshore equipment will be retrieved and all equipment will be packaged for shipping back to Fairbanks,” ACEP informed through social media.
To remind, ORPC demonstrated its 25kW RivGen Power System in the Kvichak River at Igiugig in 2014 and 2015.
The RivGen Power System is a 25 kW self-deploying submersible hydrokinetic system designed to reduce and stabilize the cost of power in remote communities located near rivers and tidal estuaries that currently use diesel fuel for power generation.
AHERC is part of Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP), based at the University of Alaska.