A Scottish marine energy company has started gathering real-time data from its test site in Orkney as it gears up for the world’s biggest wave farm installation.
The Oyster 800 test site, developed by Edinburgh-based Aquamarine Power, is analysing energy production data from the existing Oyster machine for the production of its sister wave station, Oyster 801.
The data is being gathered by two devices, an acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP) and an acoustic wave and current profiler (AWAC), which collect and transmit detailed wave information.
“As far as we are aware, this is a world first streaming real-time data from both ADCP and AWACs simultaneously from this very energetic near shore environment,” said Martin McAdam, Aquamarine Power chief executive officer.
“The data is helping us improve our hydrodynamic models, giving us a much better understanding of the actual impact of waves on the Oyster machine and how it behaves in all sea states. We can then use this to maximise the power production from Oyster 800 at our current site and replicate real sea conditions more accurately in the wave tank at Queen’s University Belfast.
“The information also allows us to gain a better understanding of the power capture of the Oyster 800 and provide more accurate power production estimates for our European Marine Energy Centre test site and our commercial sites in the Western Isles and Orkney,” McAdam concludes.
Between 40-50 Oyster machines are expected to form the world’s biggest ocean energy site in the Western Isles by 2017.
You can watch how the Oyster 800 copes with violent Orkney waves below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=EtbRkIvaXXc
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