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迅速走向现实，第一代商用波浪和潮汐能转换器现在已进入英国和欧洲的电网。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。为了增加这种领先优势，如果我们要优化它们在海浪和潮流的实际组合下的行为和性能，我们必须能够在进入海洋之前开发出更精确的模型。这需要一个波浪和电流组合测试箱。这样的水箱还将扩展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理解。相反，我们也将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，水箱中的波浪和水流必须能够以任何组合、任何相对方向起作用。下面描述的现实海浪和潮汐水箱（RealWATT）将创造海浪和潮汐条件，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相当于海上多年的条件，并可靠地重复创建正常和极端条件。在英国或欧洲没有联合测试罐可以做到这一点。海洋可再生能源产业发展迅速。然而，大多数类型的波浪能转换器易受电流的影响，大多数潮汐能转换器易受波浪的影响。虽然波浪罐和水流设施确实存在，但没有设施可以在空间和频率参数方面创造必要的宽频谱波条件，同时符合实验室规模的强大水流条件，从而为支持下一代海洋能源转换器所需的研究和开发测试提供信心。海流很少是简单或单向的，通常具有复杂的速度结构和梯度变化。海浪也是多向的，其高度、周期、陡度和频谱含量也以同样复杂的方式变化。这个新的测试设备的设计考虑到了这一点。SuperGen Marine第二阶段的首要目标是了解从实验室到公海的设备与海洋的相互作用，当受到海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，这些地点不受海浪的影响，而波浪地点的水流预计会很低。由于当前对系泊的影响，许多第一代全尺寸波浪能原型机都遇到了操作困难，从而影响了稳定性和性能。即使在没有潮流的情况下，沿海水域的波浪感应流也会对行为产生影响。潮汐开发商已经避开了暴露在大浪下的地点。欧洲海洋能源中心（EMEC）潮汐试验场位于奥克尼群岛的瓦尔尼斯瀑布（Fall of Warness），因为它与部署SeaGen的北爱尔兰斯特兰奇福德海峡（Strangford Narrows）一样，在一定程度上避免了海浪的影响。然而，许多能量最大的潮流地点却没有这么隐蔽。Pentland Firth被认为是最重要的长期开发地点之一，目前正在进行皇家地产（Crown Estate）的许可申请，它面临着巨大的大西洋浪潮。如果该行业要开发和利用最具活力的地点，研究必须继续在实验室中以模型规模了解设备在可控组合波和电流中的行为。

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.