New Guidance Released on Turbulence in Marine Environments

The TiME project consortium (consisting of partners Partrac, Ocean Array Systems, ABPmer, and IT Power) has announced that the Guidance formulated from the TiME (Turbulence in Marine Environments) project has now been released. The project, funded by the Scottish Government and managed by the Carbon Trust through the Marine Renewables Commercialization Fund (MRCF) Array Technology Innovation Program, was developed to improve the understanding of the effect of marine turbulence on tidal arrays in Scottish waters.

Turbulence was measured by Partrac in the challenging tidal environments of both the Sound of Islay and the Inner Sound, Pentland Firth, using novel methods and technologies so that each can be evaluated, and turbulence could be mapped across differing tidal energy development sites. ABPmer then incorporated the data in resource characterization, Ocean Array Systems (OAS) has provided turbulence characterization and hydrodynamic analyses, and IT Power has contributed their knowledge of engineering design, device performance and tidal turbine array modeling. The project team used this wealth of information and research to develop Turbulence Guidance through extensive engagement with the tidal energy industry.

Image of interactive Tidal Turbulence Selector. The selector links (D) design considerations (S) turbulence scales (E) physical effect and (N) nature of effect. (Source:www.oceanarraysystems.com/turbulence)

The principle outcomes of the project are:

New methods have been developed and tested to measure and characterize turbulence. Data from these new methods were then used to show that designing tidal turbines and array layouts to the true turbulence existing at different points in a site could lead to significant cost reductions.

Full details are in the Guidance documents, 
which can be obtained at www.oceanarraysystems.com/library. The guidance will also be submitted to the wave and tidal knowledge network, a platform hosted by the ORE Catapult. The TiME project will also be represented in a pre-conference workshop at the International Tidal Energy Summit (ITES) at the Hilton Tower Bridge, London, UK, on Monday 23rd November, 2015 (see http://www.tidaltoday.com/tidal-conference/conference-agenda.php).

Sam Athey, a Director and co-owner at Partrac, said “This has been an exciting and challenging project to manage. With the successful attainment of 100% data return from innovative turbulence measurement surveys, and assessment and classification of turbulence by our expert partners at OAS, ABPmer, and IT Power, the project team has developed Guidance that provides a framework for the tidal industry to measure, classify and analyze turbulence for commercial tidal arrays.”

Guy Henley, project manager of the MRCF Array Technology Innovation Program at the Carbon Trust commented: “The Guidance formulated by the project team is comprehensive and provides a solid understanding of the impact of turbulence on tidal arrays, which is a critical aspect of realizing commercial scale tidal arrays. We are confident the industry will find it invaluable for their developments.”

Dr. Tom Clark of Ocean Array Systems added, “The project has mapped in detail the effects that marine turbulence has on tidal power installations. We demonstrated a practical and efficient end-to-end process for measuring, characterizing and simulating the effect of site-specific turbulence. Finally, assessment of its impact on engineering design considerations highlighted the importance of properly accounting for turbulence – especially in considering yield and fatigue lifetimes”.