Survival Focused Automatic Control (SURF-MATIC)

Overview

The SURF-MATIC project targets development of a control system that is focused on device survival and achieving reduced loading and occurrence of severe events in Wave Energy Conversion technology.

Survival is one of the strongest cost drivers of the structure in a wave energy converter and the structural cost is a very significant overall proportion of the cost of energy produced. In addition, complications in design due to extreme loadings and occurrence of severe events also increase the cost and reduce the reliability, availability and performance of subsystems such as power take off and moorings. The opportunity that we seek to address is to deliver a control system that:

• Acts to truncate the extreme tails of the structural loading probability distribution by controlling variables that alter the hydrodynamic properties of the device so that it can avoid extreme loads.
• Acts to reduce the occurrence of harsh events such as end stop impacts and tether 'snapping' by controlling variables that both alter the hydrodynamic properties and also alter the dynamic motion response of the device.
• Is generic and can work with a wide range of wave energy converters
• Comes with design tools that can systematically identify (or design in) the configurations for each WEC type that best deliver these benefits.
• Builds on state-of-the-art ultra-high availability control systems (e.g. fly-by-wire) and adapt these to the wave energy application.

Wave Venture gathered the evidence to show that this approach is valuable and that suitable reductions in loading and harsh events can be achieved for a range of wave energy conversion technologies. Altran UK worked to show that the proposed system can be delivered in a practical industrial control system that will achieve the ultra-high availability required for safety critical systems at the low cost required in renewable energy. CorPower Ocean & Mocean Energy are developers of WEC technologies and contributed their expert knowledge of the end use application of this system and advice on how best to apply the proposed control technology to their WEC products.

Wave Venture also presented a poster on their Stage 1 Control Systems project at the 2017 WES Annual Conference.