OES Annual Report 2012 - Ocean Energy Systems

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The Electricity Research Centre in University College Dublin has had significant involvement in the
integration and the study of management issues for intermittent renewable generators such as wind power
systems operating on the national grid. Their interests include modelling of dynamic response of electrical
generators and tidal energy systems.
The Department of Electronic Engineering in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth has a dedicated
Wave Energy Group working in the areas of
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Hydrodynamic modelling
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PTO modelling
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Impact of wave directionality on WECs
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Device optimisation
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Control system design for WECs
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Resource assessment and forecasting
Industry Funded R&D
All of the research and demonstration activities involve an element of match-funding from industry.
SEAI and Enterprise Ireland are funding Ocean Energy device developers at various stages and are also
funding development of new components and supply chain elements that will ultimately assist all of the
industry. Examples of projects funded in the period 2010-2012 include:
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Benson Engineering – Device and sea water component pump
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Limerick Wave – Power take off
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Carnegie Wave – Site assessment
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Open Hydro – Technology enhancement
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Jospa – Device development
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Waveberg – device development
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Key Engineering Services – systems devlopment
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Cyan Wave – device development
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Wave Energy Ireland – combined device development
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Wavebob – technology enhancement
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Ocean Energy Ltd – device development
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Bluepower Energy – power take off
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Technology from ideas – supply chain and components
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Seapower – device and components
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Houston engineering – power take off
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IBM Inc – Acoustic monitoring of WECs
Participation in Collaborative International Projects
MARINET - UCC co-ordinates the EU FP7 MaRINET (Marine Renewables Infrastructure Network for Energy
Technologies) project. MARINET (Marine Renewables Infrastructure Network) is a new network of research
centres which aims to accelerate the development of marine renewable energy (wave, tidal & offshorewind)
by bringing together world-class testing facilities to offer EU-funded testing and to coordinate
focussed R&D. Many European marine renewable energy test centres have formed this network in order to
work together to offer their unique capabilities and services in a coordinated way, essentially providing a
one-stop-shop for marine renewable energy research and testing in Europe and farther afield (e.g. Brazil).
The European Commission has supported this initiative by way of funding through the FP7 programme.
This enables MARINET partners to offer periods of access to their facilities at no cost to users. Access is
open to all potential users who wish to avail of these facilities – research groups, companies, SMEs etc. As
well as offering test facility access, MARINET will also implement common standards for testing, conduct
research to improve testing capabilities and provide training at various facilities in the network in order to
enhance expertise in the industry. Access is available to 42 facilities from 28 network partners spread across
11 EU countries and 1 International Cooperation Partner Country (Brazil). The initiative runs for four years
until 2015, with at least four calls for access applications. In total, over 700 weeks of access is available to
an estimated 300 projects and 800 external users. For further information see www.fp7-marinet.eu
ANNUAL
REPORT 2012