Sea Potential focuses on optimizing the 1:20 scale model

The team’s focus at the moment is on optimizing the 1/20 model for the final.

The analysis of the data from our 1/50 tests at University of Iowa and numerical modelling using the advanced coupled analysis features of Wood Group Kenny’s Flexcom software have helped identify some small structural improvements that will increase the ACE metric for the 1/20 model.

The state-of-the-art coupled analysis capabilities of Flexcom are also key to optimizing the mooring design for the MASK basin – this will be important for the HPQ score that will determine prize winners from the teams that can exceed the 3.0 m/$m threshold.

An animation from the Flexcom modelling is shown below.

COMING SOON!

The other software Sea Potential are employing for the optimization work is the new techno-economic software from Exceedence. The unique “Goal Seek” and “Sensitivity” modules have enabled the Sea Potential team to identify where specific improvements can be made for the range incident wave conditions for the 1/20th-scale experiments at NSWC Carderock’s MASK. The Exceedence software will be a valuable asset in transforming the DUO’s performance data from the Wave Energy Prize into a finance model for wave energy farms around the world - a key step in making wave energy commercial.

We are looking forward to the Team Summit at “Water Power Week” in Washington – with an opportunity to meet the other teams as well as catching up with colleagues from the wave energy sector.

One of the more interesting opportunities that could emerge from the Wave Energy Prize is for teams to merge and co-operate to bring the promising technologies through to commercial reality – while some technologies will fall short of meeting the necessary performance metrics, the skills and capabilities from the wave energy prize teams can play an important role in achieving the longer term goals that everyone shares for the wave energy sector.

One of the reasons for participating in and supporting the Prize is that for the first time in this emerging sector there is a clear and transparent bench-marking process that will give confidence to potential investors that the world’s abundant offshore wave energy resources can be harvested in a commercially competitive manner. Convergence around technology that produces independently verified performance metrics that can lead onto commercially viable wave energy technology is a key step to overcoming the fragmented nature of this nascent industry.