MULTIPURPOSE PLATFORMS FOR GENERATING RENEWABLE ENERGY

 

We are helping to develop new offshore multi-purpose platforms that will allow extracting clean energy and reduce CO2 emissions globally.

“Facilitating the energy transition”

Thanks to this, a key initiative was implemented: FP7-Ocean of Tomorrow. FP7-OCEAN seeks to promote basic and applied research to the rational and sustainable use of ocean resources.
It is within this framework that the European MERMAID project was implemented:
“Innovative Multi-purpose off-shore platforms: planning, design and operation”, with the participation of 29 European institutions, both public and private, including IHCantabria.
The Mermaid project has spurred the development of new multi-purpose offshore structures (MUP) that allow sharing ocean uses by reducing the impact and maximizing the efficiency of power generation and other relevant uses, such as oceanic aquaculture.

With cost reduction as the main focus, special emphasis has also been placed on risk reduction and analyzing socio-environmental benefits.

This European project has designed several MUPs for four different representative locations of Europe’s four main seas: the Baltic Sea, North Sea, Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. IHCantabria has been leading the design and validation of a multi-purpose platform for the Atlantic Ocean, using as reference site the Cantabrian Sea, and specifically the coasts of the municipality of Santander.

The new MUP is a floating, semi-submersible platform equipped with a wind turbine and three oscillating-water-column wave energy converters that are attached to the seabed by a catenary anchoring system. The performance of the new device in waves, wind and currents was tested using reduced-scale trials in the Cantabria Coastal and Ocean Basin.
In addition, specific numerical models have been developed to enhance our knowledge of how the platform behaves at sea and evaluate its production and technical-economic viability.
Once the initial challenges were overcome, a 77-unit multipurpose platform facility was installed off the coast of Virgen del Mar as a practical example of this technology.

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