OES Annual Report 2012 - Ocean Energy Systems

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04 / COUNTRY REPORTS
Spanish leadership in offshore multi-purpose platforms
With the leadership of the Spanish company Acciona Energia, the European MARINA-Platform project
is dealing with the evaluation of multi-purpose platforms for marine renewable energy and plan to
produce a set of design and optimisation tools addressing, inter alia, new platform design, component
engineering, risk assessment, spatial planning, platform-related grid connection concepts, all focussed
on system integration and reducing costs. These tools will be used to produce two or three realisations of
multi-purpose renewable energy platforms. The MARINA-Platform project started in January 2010 with the
support of the European Commission through the seventh framework programme and will run during 54
months. Further information at www.marina-platform.com
PLOCAN, the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands, is leading the TROPOS project awarded with
€6.6 million under the European call “Ocean of Tomorrow” in 2011. The objective of this project is to
design multi-use offshore platforms where ocean energy plays a key role. Further information at www.
troposplatform.eu
The Spanish company AWS Truepower is leading the H2OCEAN project aimed at developing a wind-wave
power open sea platform equipped for hydrogen generation with support for multiple users of energy and
uses such as multi-trophic aquaculture. The project started in January 2012, will run for 3 years and is also
funded under the Ocean of Tomorrow 2011 call. Further information at www.h2ocean-project.eu
TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATION
Operational Ocean Energy Projects
The Biscay Marine Energy Platform – bimep – provides wave energy device manufacturers with facilities to
validate their designs and to test their technical and economic feasibility. The Basque coast, and specifically
the location of bimep off the coast of Armintza (Bizkaia), offers suitable wave conditions for device testing
and a relatively low exposure to extreme waves that could damage the prototypes. Bimep occupies a 5.3
km 2 marked area excluded for navigation and maritime traffic, and located at a minimum distance of 1,700
m from shore, close enough for fast access to deployed devices. The total power of 20 MW is distributed
over four offshore connection points of 5 MW each at 50-90 m water depths. Once the administrative
authorisation for the installation was granted, in November 2012, the first works started with the horizontal
drilling for the installation of the submarine power cables.
First works at bimep: horizontal drilling for submarine cable installation