United Kingdom Centre for Marine Energy Research: The all UK waters, combined, current and wave test facility.

随着海洋能源技术继续从实验室快速走向现实，第一代商业波浪和潮汐能转换器现在已进入英国和欧洲的电力网络。英国拥有世界上最好的海洋能源资源，在波浪和潮汐能系统的研究、开发、示范和部署方面处于世界领先地位。为了扩大这一领先优势，如果我们要在波浪和潮流的现实组合下优化它们的行为和表现，我们必须能够在进入海洋之前开发出这些系统和未来系统的更准确的模型。这就需要一个组合的波流测试水箱。这样的水箱还将扩大我们对岛屿和海岸线等环境特征对波浪和潮汐能装置的影响的了解。反过来，我们也会更好地了解这些设备对环境的影响，坦克将在优化海上和海岸防御方面有更广泛的应用。为了完全模拟现实，水箱中的波和流必须能够在任何组合中、在任何相对方向上发挥作用。下面描述的真实波浪和潮汐水池(RealWATT)将创造出波浪和潮汐条件，在规模上代表英国任何潜在的海洋能源或沿海地点。它将能够在几个小时内模拟出相当于海上数年的条件，并将可靠和重复地创造正常和极端的条件。在英国和欧洲，没有一个联合试验箱可以做到这一点。海洋可再生产业正在迅速发展。然而，大多数类型的波能转换器容易受到水流的影响，大多数潮流能转换器也容易受到海浪的影响。虽然存在波浪水槽和水流设施，但没有设施能够在空间和频率参数方面创造必要的宽谱波浪条件，与实验室规模的强健水流条件相吻合，这是支持下一代海洋能源转换器所需的研究和开发试验的信心所必需的。海流很少是简单的或单向的，通常具有复杂的速度、纹理和梯度变化。海浪也是多方向的，其高度、周期、陡度和光谱含量也以同样复杂的方式变化。这一新测试设施的设计考虑到了这一点。SuperGen海洋第二阶段的首要目标是了解从实验室到公海的各种尺度上的设备-海洋相互作用，当受到波浪和潮流的综合影响时，这让我们对这个水箱的需求有了相当大的了解。早期的设备部署在潮汐地点，这些地点躲避海浪，以及预计海流较低的海浪地点。由于当前对系泊设施的影响，许多第一代全尺寸波能原型都经历了操作困难，从而影响了稳定性和性能。即使在没有潮流的情况下，沿海水域的波浪诱导流也可能对行为产生影响。潮汐开发商避免了暴露在大浪中的地点。之所以选择位于奥克尼沃内斯瀑布的欧洲海洋能源中心(EMEC)潮汐试验场，是因为它和部署SeaGen的北爱尔兰Strangford Narrow站点一样，部分免受海浪的影响。然而，许多最有活力的潮汐流点却没有这么好的遮蔽性。彭特兰峡湾被公认为是最重要的长期开发地点之一，现在是皇室地产许可证轮的主题，面临着巨大的大西洋海浪。如果该行业要开发和利用能量最大的场地，研究人员必须继续在实验室的模型尺度上了解设备在可控组合波和流中的行为。

As marine energy technology continues to move rapidly from laboratory to reality, the first generation of commercial wave and tidal energy converters now feed into electricity networks in the UK and Europe. The UK enjoys some of the world's best marine energy resources and is a world leader in the research, development, demonstration and deployment of wave and tidal energy systems. To increase that lead, we must be able to develop ever more accurate models of these and future systems before entering the sea, if we are to optimise their behaviour and performance under realistic combinations of waves and tidal currents. This demands a combined wave and current test tank. Such a tank will also extend our understanding of the effects of environmental features such as islands and coastlines on wave and tidal energy devices. Conversely, we would also better understand the impacts of these devices on the environment and the tank would have wider applications in optimising maritime and coastal defence. To mimic reality in full, waves and currents in the tank must be able to act in any combination, in any relative direction. The realistic wave and tidal tank (RealWATT) described below will create wave and tidal conditions that represent, at scale, any prospective marine energy or coastal site in the UK. It will be able to model conditions equivalent to years at sea in a few hours and will create normal and extreme conditions reliably and repeatedly. There is no combined test tank in the UK or Europe that can do this.The marine renewable industry is developing rapidly. However, most types of wave energy converters are vulnerable to currents and most tidal current energy converters are vulnerable to waves. Although wave tanks and current flow facilities do exist, there are no facilities which can create the necessary wide spectral wave conditions, in terms of both spatial and frequency parameters, coincident with robust current conditions at laboratory scales necessary to give confidence in the research and developmental testing necessary to support the next generation of marine energy converters. Marine currents are rarely simple or unidirectional and usually have complex variations of velocity texture and gradient. Ocean waves are also multi-directional and their height, period, steepness and spectral content vary in equally complex ways. The design of this new test facility takes this into account.The overarching objective of SuperGen Marine Phase 2 is to understand the device-sea interactions across the range of scales from the laboratory to the open sea, when subject to the combined effects of waves and tidal currents and this has give us considerable insight into the need for this tank. Early device deployments have been at tidal sites which are sheltered from waves and wave sites in which currents were expected to be low. Many of the first generation of full scale wave energy prototypes have experienced operational difficulties due to current effects on moorings, with consequent effects on stability and performance. Even in the absence of tidal currents, wave induced currents in coastal waters can have an influence on behaviour. Tidal developers have avoided sites exposed to large waves. The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) tidal test site at the Fall of Warness in Orkney was chosen as it is partly sheltered from wave action as was the Strangford Narrows site in Northern Ireland, where SeaGen is deployed. Many of the most energetic tidal current sites are not, however, so sheltered. The Pentland Firth, which is recognised as one of the most significant sites for long term development, and is now the subject of a Crown Estate licensing round, is exposed to significant Atlantic swell. If the industry is to develop and exploit the most energetic sites, research must continue to understand device behaviour in controllable combined waves and currents at model scale in laboratories.