Sea conditions around Orkney have been challenging over the past few weeks, however all clump weight friction trials at sea have now been completed. The attached pictures detail the operations performed at sea.
As part of ongoing commitments to produce electricity from marine renewable energy sources, the Canaries waters have been targeted for large-scale deployment of marine renewable energy (MRE) and offshore wind devices. Success of the MRE and offshore wind industries is dependent upon maximising energy capture and minimising down-time. Device performance and sensor accuracy are negatively impacted by the growth of fouling organisms, leading to reduced efficiency and reliability; anti-fouling strategies are costly and time consuming. Biofouling also reduces accuracy of data buoys and sensors used to assess the hydrodynamic resource and device performance.
VALID is a 3-year H2020 project, kicking off 1st of December 2020, specifically designed to develop a Hybrid Testing Platform for accelerated testing with methodologies by combining the virtual and physical environment, reducing cost in the product developing process, tackling scaling challenges and lowering uncertainties once fully demonstrated in the ocean.