Integrated Numerical and Physical Modelling of Offshore Renewable Energy Systems

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Floating wind, wave, and tidal energy systems are a new frontier for renewable electricity generation. The opportunity in Canada is immense, with world-leading tidal potential in the Bay of Fundy and strong wind resources over the deep waters offshore, including the Great Lakes. Research around the world is engaged with developing these technologies toward commercial readiness. However, the action of extracting energy from moving flows makes for complex motions and structural loads that are difficult to predict. Accurately evaluating these is essential to maximizing efficiency and minimizing cost and risk. More versatile and connective modelling techniques are needed – whether numerical simulations or scaled physical experiments – in order to better resolve the interactions between system components and the surrounding environment, and to ultimately enable greater intuition in the design process. The goal of the proposed research program is to develop such techniques.******Work will proceed along three fronts. One theme will expand numerical modelling tools to capture the dynamic coupling between multiple floating structures that are moored together, including how the mooring lines and the waves interact. Another theme will continue pioneering work on how simulations and experiments can be coupled together in real time to model floating wind turbines. This involves finding new ways to test floating wind turbines in wave basins where the wind load is applied by a simulation-controlled actuation system. The third theme, which integrates the other two, looks at developing a ubiquitous coupling framework to facilitate combining different numerical (and possibly physical) models in order to better simulate entire offshore renewable energy systems. Such a framework could bridge specialized modelling research in different laboratories around the world and enable new possibilities for using the best tools in all parts of device simulation. Ultimately, the goal of such work is to build towards a new, more collaborative and connective paradigm in how offshore systems modelling research is done. The development of more versatile and connective tools will also raise new possibilities for greater integration of advanced modelling techniques in the design process to the benefit of future designs. For Canada, the proposed program will contribute to accelerated cost-effective adoption of offshore renewable energy sources and enhance domestic capacity in this rapidly-growing sector.