Partners
The MONITOR project brings together a consortium of expertise
Swansea University
(lead partner)
Swansea is a top-ten university for engineering research in the UK and has a long history of collaboration with industry to bring its research outputs to the market. The university’s strategy emphasises research impact and has management structures in place to help researchers to achieve this.
As lead partner, SU will be responsible for the management of the project, including oversight to check progress against the work plan and assurance of funder compliance. SU will also lead WP5 on numerical modelling, due to their expertise with the specific computer models being used.
www.swansea.ac.uk
Magallanes Renovables S.L.
Magallanes Renovables’ seven years of investigations, studies and trials have given them valuable experience and know-how resulting in a proven, innovative tidal technology. Magallanes brings to the project a highly-qualified team and a 1:1 scale prototype platform due to start testing at EMEC in 2018.
Magallanes Renovables has two main roles. Firstly, to guide project activities specifically relating to the Tidal Energy Platform (numerics, lab and sea testing, VMEA reliability case study); secondly, to ensure that the project reflects industry priorities for blade/structure reliability.
SABELLA S.A.S.
SABELLA is an engineering and project management company in the field of marine current turbines. In 2015, SABELLA installed a 1MW tidal turbine near Ushant island. The Sabella D10 was connected to the Ushant power grid and became the first ocean renewable energy system grid connected in France.
SABELLA will provide data on the tidal environment from measurement campaigns in the Fromveur Strait and make some recommendations on characterising environmental conditions, VMEA analysis, components monitoring and maintenance strategy, based on its experience from the D10 turbine.
Université Le Havre Normandie
The UNOR-ULH laboratory (a joint effort with CNRS), has expertise in both experimental and numerical methods. The marine hydrodynamics group has focused on tidal energy since 2008 and are well-regarded for their collaboration with IFREMER on numerical and experimental investigation of tidal power.
UNOR-ULH will primarily take responsibility for leading work package 6, which involves managing the flume tank trials. There is also a responsibility for actions on work package 5 on numerical modelling, where UNOR-ULH will be carrying out simulations using the vortex particle method.
University College Cork
UCC is Ireland’s premier research university, attracting the highest peer reviewed research income per head nationally. UCC is home to major research institutes and centres, including the internationally renowned Centre for Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland, MaREI.
UCC will be leading the technoeconomic aspect of MONITOR. This will mean building a cost model of TEC construction and operation and determining the dependencies of that model on blade/structure reliability. UCC will make use of relevant information from partners on other work packages.
European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC)
EMEC is the leading centre for testing, demonstrating and verifying wave and tidal energy technologies in the sea. To date, EMEC has hosted more marine energy devices than at any other site in the world.
EMEC will lead the communication and dissemination activities in the project to ensure that project outcomes make an impact across the ocean energy sector. www.emec.org.uk
Région Normandie
RN is in charge of regional public policies for economic development and training. Marine renewable energy (MRE) is a key topic for Normandy, as its waters hold some of the best potential tidal sites in Europe, e.g. the Alderney Race; as such MRE is explicitly part of ongoing policy development.
Normandy’s Regional Council will help disseminate the project’s outputs, will offer guidance to the project partners based on regional tidal industry needs, and will develop regional strategy based on the project.
Universidade do Algarve
CIMA-UAlg is experienced in collecting and processing oceanographic data (wind, wave, currents) using state-of-the-art equipment i.e., Doppler current meters, anemometers and pressure transducers. CIMA-UAlg is currently leading two projects on testing tidal energy devices in real environments.
The role of CIMA-UALG is to plan and coordinate fieldwork activities under WP7 actions 1-2 by giving logistical support to the tidal developers; to collect and process the resulting data that will be inputs to the models of WP4 and 5; and to publish the findings in a suitable format (WP7 action 3).
Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult
OREC is funded by UK Government, as the UK’s flagship technology, innovation and research centre for wind, wave and tidal energy. It takes part in large-scale collaborative R&D, commercially and publicly funded innovation projects, and operates open-access test facilities for drivetrain reliability.
OREC will take a technical role in producing a novel reliability model for tidal energy converters, and a capitalization role in taking ownership of this model and incorporating it into OREC’s suite of products and services with which it supports the tidal energy industry.