Public Funding for Scottishpower Renewables (UK) Limited

A major step forward in the commercialisation of tidal stream power is being taken in the form of a collaborative project involving SSE Renewables, Scottish Power Renewables, Alstom Hydro France, Andritz Hydro Hammerfest, Tidal Generation Ltd (Rolls-Royce), Voith Hydro Ocean Current Technologies and [electrical partner tbc]. The companies, with the support of the Technology Strategy Board, will work together to develop an electrical connection architecture for large scale tidal power arrays which is compatible with a range of tidal stream turbines. The project will develop and prove the key technologies required to support the architecture. The partners are entering into this project with the intent to develop the complete architecture solution ready for use in the first commercial scale tidal power arrays currently being developed by SSE Renewables and Scottish Power Renewables.

This project seeks to identify and validate concepts that deliver significant savings against the structural, ancillary and installation components of offshore HVDC platforms. The project will engage with upstream and downstream stakeholders to establish and prioritise potential areas of improvement for cost reduction and develop innovative strategies to deliver savings. The methodology will seek to identify several concepts and develop the best ones to validate the potential savings and demonstrate technical feasibility. The final concept(s) will be hydro-dynamically tested to ensure that the proposed solution has suitable hydrodynamic performance. The project will build on knowledge of existing HVDC platform projects in non-UK waters. The concept will be based on the generic requirements impossed by the electrical plant associated with HVDC rather than be fixed to a single supplier.

VISION To develop Safety Net, a resident marine based autonomous search and rescue service that will enable three significant changes in the design and operation of offshore wind farms to improve safety and profitability. Change 1: Provide 24/7 rapid emergency response for offshore wind farms that reduces casualty recovery time frames helping to save lives at sea. An unmanned solution eliminates the need for a secondary manned vessel to provide emergency response onsite, reducing the number of technicians required to work offshore which reduces the overall risk profile and the risk of COVID-19 transmission between personnel. Change 2: Enable offshore wind farm layout optimisation to improve the profitability of offshore wind farms. A resident marine-based search and rescue service removes the constraint of helicopter search and rescue which requires sites to be built in grid patterns. Change 3: Enable helicopter only operations for rapid repair/breakdown response. Current guidance requires a secondary means of rescue within 30 minutes of a helicopter in the event of an emergency. Safety Net would cover this requirement enabling helicopters to deploy without backup vessels. OBJECTIVES/ FOCUS This project will bring the partners together required to develop a turn key search and rescue service. The partners will be integrating several state-of-the-art technologies with high TRL values and applying these in a novel manner. Working with our technology partners the key objectives are: * Create a machine learning / Artificial Intelligence (AI) solution to save lives. Employing input from both aerial and onboard multispectral sensors the solution will:- Autonomously navigate all deployed assets to the casualties, identified by location beacon or VHF DR. * Identify the signature of one or more casualties in the water. * autonomously manoeuvre assets, according to prevailing conditions, Collision Regulations and casualty location to a position where the casualty can be recovered * Employ the novel Casualty Conveyor Rescue System to recover conscious or unconscious casualties from the water to a place of shelter where their needs can be remotely assessed. * Employing a data solution, to communicate sensory and multispectral data from both aerial and surface assets to a Remote Operations Centre. The solution must provide primary low latency, high capacity bandwidth from a moving asset in multiple degrees of freedom * Employing 5G and fiber optic networks to provide secondary resilient communication via mobile assets and the Launch and Recovery System (LARS) base stations. By developing, testing and integrating these technologies we aim to offer the worlds first offshore autonomous marine based search and rescue service, helping to save lives at sea and build the wind farms of the future.

"SISProtect will develop and demonstrate a solution to address the construction and O&M costs, health and safety and environmental factors associated with current scour protection systems. Scour is the erosion of the seabed caused by moving water such as those commonly experienced in offshore environments where the sea currents / waves cause sandy seabeds to become eroded around offshore wind turbine foundations and other assets such as subsea cables, etc. SISProtect will provide a cost effective and long term (permanent) solution for this issue which can cost the offshore wind industry significantly if suitable measures are not taken, resulting in higher costs of energy from the offshore wind farm installations. The SSCS Frond Mat system, which are mats of 'artificial seaweed' provides cost, H&S, and environmental benefits whilst providing robust scour protection. This is achieved through: A cost effective scour protection system engineered and installed to the foundation within the safety and security of an onshore facility; improved deployment times when compared with existing solutions; the system requires no ongoing maintenance in contrast to rocks and other 'conventional' methods; no need for large heavy lift / rock dumping vessels thereby reducing diesel usage and opportunities for H&S issues offshore; the environment by utilising environmentally accepted materials to recreate natures method of scour prevention. Whilst frond mat concept has been field proven in the Oil and Gas sector in water depths of up to and over 100m, it has not been possible to date to model and adapt the Mats deployment methodology specifically for offshore wind farm turbine foundations without an opportunity such as the one being offered by this project. The main consideration for this project is the innovative deployment system, developed by SPT Offshore, that would be incorporated with the foundation during construction and would automatically deploy the Frond Mats during foundation installation. This self-deployment system would therefore eliminate the need for separate offshore operations to install scour protection resulting in significant cost savings, as well as reducing the HSE impact associated with offshore operations. A specific deployment system will be developed to achieve this, along with Frond Mats designed and manufactured to suit the system. Successful completion will see a globally unique solution developed in the UK capable of saving £150-200m for project in the UK alone, comfortably allowing estimating savings in the £billions globally."

"CROWN 2 builds on a previously-funded project (CROWN) that aims to completely change the way offshore wind foundations are protected from corrosion. While a well-established and robust solution is to use a paint and galvanic anode approach, protection lifetime is limited by paint degradation and anode mass. Such systems are also expensive to manufacture, install and maintain. The consortium will be investigating whether a single coating of aluminium, applied to the surface by arc-spraying, can replace paint and anodes entirely. If successful, such a coating would lower the cost of wind energy, by removing bottlenecks in the manufacture of wind turbine foundations and eliminating a significant amount of secondary steelwork that has to be expensively welded by skilled professionals."

This project will demonstrate the operation of an array of Pelamis P2 wave energy converters, operated by Pelamis Wave Power under contract to E.ON and ScottishPower Renewables. The objectives of the project are to refine O&M methods, enhance machine performance, demonstrate machine reliability and to support a robust cost reduction strategy for future projects. The consortium comprises: PWP with over 12 years of experience in R&D, deploying and operating wave energy technology; E.ON bringing extensive experience owning and operating a diverse generation portfolio, with specific skills on innovative storage and generation technologies; and ScottishPower Renewables - part of Iberdrola Renewables - the world's biggest producer of renewable energy who bring significant experience of developing, owning and operating major renewable generation assets.