Wave energy is forecast to have the potential to supply some 10% of European electricity needs; about half today’s total renewable generation. Due to its phasing, wave power complements solar and wind power and thus facilitates the practical integration of more renewables in the European grid. Europe is currently the world leader in wave energy and thus there are significant opportunities for green jobs associated with its development and deployment.
Wave energy costs remain high compared to conventional forms of energy. There has been very limited open-sea experience to fully understand the challenges in device performance, survivability and reliability.
The limited operating data and experience that currently exists are rarely shared, since it is often partly private-sponsored. Led by TECNALIA, OPERA – Open Sea Operating Experience to Reduce Wave Energy Cost, will remove this roadblock by delivering, for the first time, open access, high-quality open-sea operating data to the wave energy development community. OPERA will collect, analyse and share open-sea operating data and experience to validate and de-risk industrial innovations for wave energy opening the way to long term cost-reduction of over 50%.
OPERA’s first phase entails a nationally-funded open-sea testing of a baseline configuration of a Wave Energy Converter (WEC); a floating Oscillating Water Column (OWC) device developed by OCEANTEC, with shared mooring, conventional tether, Wells turbine and non-predictive control algorithms.
OPERA’s second phase integrates three cost-reducing innovations into the OWC: a biradial turbine, novel elastomeric tethers, and predictive control algorithms. These innovations will undergo thorough lab-testing and prior de-risking in the Mutriku shoreline wave power plant.
Sensor integration of the OCEANTEC floating OWC will permit to compare its structural and power performance, as well as sub-system reliability and survivability.
The project will perform field tests at Mutriku shoreline wave power plant (Gipuzkoa-Spain), to validate the reliability and performance of the novel biradial turbine and control algorithms; and field tests at bimep open-sea test facility (Bizkaia-Spain) with two different configurations of the WEC prototype.
Process data acquired during field tests will allow post-test analysis, global assessment and sector impact to assess the economic, life-cycle and social impact, and to foster the adoption of exploitable results.
To make this ambitious project a success, OPERA’s consortium involves different experienced stakeholders for the whole value chain of the wave energy sector: TECNALIA (Spain), OCEANTEC (Spain), Biscay Marine Energy Platform – bimep (Spain), Ente Vasco de la Energía – EVE (Spain), IBERDROLA Engineering and Construction (United Kingdom), Global Maritime (United Kingdom), DNV GL (United Kingdom), The University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom), The University of Exeter (United Kingdom), Kymaner (Portugal), Instituto Superior Técnico – IST (Portugal), University College Cork – UCC (Ireland).
