On 29th December 2017, DNV GL has issued the statement of compliance after the in-depth design assessment of OCEANTEC’s MARMOK-A-5 hull and mooring system.
As any other immature technology, wave energy entails significant uncertainties. Being aware of this, the OPERA project embedded in its work plan a set of activities aimed to increase understanding of technological risks, to reduce uncertainties and to improve management of risk ownership and mitigation.
DNV GL, world leader in risk management, provided the technology qualification process for the OPERA project and is also guiding the application of the assessment methods for the systematic identification and priorisation of novelties, uncertainties and risk.
An initial evaluation of risk was carried out at the beginning of the project based on the baseline MARMOK-A-5 configuration deployed at the BiMEP open-sea test site and followed by periodic risk monitoring to evaluate and update the specific risks.
In parallel, OCEANTEC has achieved the statement of compliance by DNV GL regarding the Design Assessment of the MARMOK-A-5 hull and mooring system, according to DNV-OSS-312:2008-10 Certification of Tidal and Wave Energy Converters.
For this technology qualification, it has been necessary a Technology Assessment, a Failure Mode Identification and a Risk Ranking. The wave energy converter was broken down into systems, subsystems and components with due consideration of the different phases (e.g. operation, fabrication, transportation, installation, etc.) to carry out identification of the novelties, failure modes and mitigation actions.
MARMOK-A-5 has been deployed at BiMEP since October 2016 thanks to the support of a Pre-Commercial Public Procurement tender launched by EVE (Basque Energy Agency) in November 2014 and awarded to OCEANTEC in 2015. The wave energy converter has been in the water over 16 consecutive months surviving extreme environmental conditions (maximum wave height of 14 m).
OPERA is an international project consortium, coordinated by TECNALIA, comprising 12 academic and industrial partners. The project aims to develop and de-risk technologies that will reduce the cost of operating wave energy devices at sea by 50% and subsequently accelerate the roll out of marine renewable energy.
