A report prepared by University of Edinburgh contributed to OES-IA Annex II – Guidelines for Development and Testing of Ocean Energy Systems Task 3.2 Assessment of the performance of tidal energy systems. (OES-IA Document nº T02-3.2 )
BACKGROUND
The DTI’s Wave and Tidal Stream Energy Demonstration Scheme, part of the Marine Renewable Deployment Fund (MRDF) supports the development of full-scale, gridconnected, multi-device wave and tidal-current energy demonstration facilit ies. An important objective of the Scheme is the production of transparent, unambiguous, consistent and meaningful assessments of the performance of tidal devices and arrays of tidal devices. This will enable the performance of devices to be effectively validated and, consequently, enable government, industry and the finance/investment community to form soundly based judgements of the commercial prospects of the technologies being demonstrated. To ensure that the performance of different devices is assessed on a consistent basis, there is a need for an explicit written protocol, which will form part of the contract between MRDF Scheme Participants and the Secretary of State. The protocol sets out in detail how performance assessment should be conducted.
This document proposes a preliminary Protocol for the performance testing of t idal current energy devices/arrays. Feedback on the initial draft Protocol document has been compiled, and where deemed appropriate, incorporated into the finalised preliminary protocol. This exercise is detailed in the accompanying “Response to feedback” document. It is acknowledged at this stage that knowledge gaps exist which impact on the proposed Protocol. These knowledge gaps have been identified in the accompanying documentation. Research to address the key knowledge gaps will inform the content of the final Protocol document adopted by the DTI for the MRDF Scheme.
