D1 - Control of ORE farms
D - Sensing, Control and Electromechanics
Challenges/Opportunities
It is difficult to simultaneously maximize power generation, reduce fatigue load and minimize environment impact in complex ORE systems.
Solution
Develop and validate control technology for ORE farms to balance competing requirements.
Context and Need
The control of individual wind turbines has been well developed but techniques for tidal and wave devices are lagging. In addition load reduction and robust control technology for the next generation of wind turbines e.g. up to 20MW, faces new and big challenge, in particularly with blades becoming much larger and more flexible. Furthermore the control technology of ORE farms (as complicated distributed systems) needs further investigation to maximize the overall yield and increase fatigue lifetime while also minimising environmental impacts.
Summary
There are research challenges in the development of control technologies in order to optimise the performance of ORE systems under varying operating and survivability conditions, both for individual devices and for arrays. There is a need to develop and validate control technology to control the individual ORE device and the whole ORE farm to maximize the power capture, reduce the fatigue load and minimize the environment impact.
Impact Potential
Improved farm scale control will increase energy yield, reduce maintenance costs, minimise environment impact and thus enable a transition to larger ORE devices and farms. Improved control is needed to enable control of devices affected by combined wind, wave and tidal forcing. This can help reduce the cost of renewable energy and increase the deployment of ORE farms.
Research Summary
Current activity includes:
- UK-China - FENGBO-WIND - Farming the Environment into the Grid: Big data in Offshore Wind (EP/R007470/1) 2017-2020
- A New Partnership in Offshore Wind (EP/R004900/1) 2017-2022