The interest for renewable energies has exponentially risen in the last few years. Several factors have contributed to this growth: the increase on energy demand, the political instability of many countries that produce fossil fuels, the high fluctuation of oil prices, the countries’ energy dependence and the concern generated by the environmental impact produced by the traditional sources of energy. This fact has boosted the development of numerous renewable energies and has promoted the establishment of ambitious objectives by the main world organisations, like the one set by the European Commission of covering 20% of the energy demand with renewable energies by 2020. By using current marine energy harnessing technology, it would be possible to provide up to 13% of the global energy, by extracting 2.200 TWh/year.
OCEAN_2G (validation and pre-certification of a new 2MW marine current generator) is an innovation project that aims to develop the Product Categories Rules for pre-certification and industrialization stages for an innovative tidal energy harnessing system solution ready to enter into the markets, generating specialized jobs, promoting smart, sustainable and inclusive economic growth in European and global markets. At the same time, boosting the performance of the industrial partners in the Consortium and placing Magallanes Renovables’ technology as a worldwide referent in the production of tidal energy generation floating platforms.
The outcome of this Fast track to Innovation project is to provide a 2MW pre-marketable floating platform technically validated towards commercialization stages.
The strengths to be verified are the low cost of installation and decommissioning, the low cost of maintenance, high yield and the survivability of the system. On the other hand, there are several technical innovations to be tested, such as an accessible machine room for maintenance in dry conditions, the validation of the energy production systems (pitch, ballast, power train), and the control system of the platform.
Ocean_2G’s main objectives are as follows:
•Validate the full-scale (1:1 size) prototype in a controlled marine environment through a structured test programme;
•Demonstrate the operational performance of a grid connected full-scale prototype in a real open sea environment;
•Improve the prototype for cost competitive energy generation with a target of 2MW;
•Pre-certification of the full-scale prototype with an independent electrical power performance assessment;
•Develop a business strategy and marketing approach according to the projects outputs and identify potential customers.
The ATIR platform started the electrical generation on August 2019, using two control centres in, Redondela (Spain) and Kirkwall (Scotland) to monitor the production of electricity. The project has performed several successful tests, demonstrating the automatic and remote power generation from tidal currents, validating the technology developed by MAGALLANES.
It has also been implemented a control system with predictive maintenance and it was also performed a blade cleaning operation, without any breakdowns in the whole project. Besides, as for the environmental impact, we have experienced zero impact on the wildlife (mammals, poultry, marine species).
