Shared mooring system designs and cost estimates for wave energy arrays

Housner, Stein; Hall, Matthew; Tran, Thanh Toan; de Miguel Para, Borja; Maeso, Aimar

doi:10.1016/j.renene.2024.120924

Shared mooring system designs and cost estimates for wave energy arrays

Journal Article · Sat Jul 06 00:00:00 EDT 2024 · Renewable Energy

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2024.120924· OSTI ID:2406874

^[1]; Hall, Matthew ^[1]; Tran, Thanh Toan ^[1]; de Miguel Para, Borja ^[2]; Maeso, Aimar ^[2]

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
IDOM Consulting, Engineering, Architecture, S.A.U., Bilbao (Spain)

For floating renewable energy devices to become more cost-efficient and commercially scalable, their mooring system designs must be low-cost and suited for large-scale installations. Large arrays of floating devices, such as wave energy converters (WECs), will likely be designed with an individual mooring system for each device in the array. However, new mooring technology advancements provide options to use shared mooring lines to connect adjacent devices to one another, reducing the total number of anchors in the array, thereby reducing material use and cost. Here, this paper explores the design, modeling, and cost analysis of shared mooring systems for various sizes of arrays consisting of heaving oscillating water column (OWC) WECs. Shared mooring systems for WEC arrays sized in 2 x N and N x N grid layouts are designed to meet the relevant design standards, checking their performance with a nonlinear time-domain dynamic simulation, and the costs of each are calculated and compared. Several assumptions are taken in the design process to produce efficient results, providing a preliminary optimization for guidance on design decisions rather than a full, detailed design analysis. Mooring system costs per WEC were found to decrease as the number of WECs in the array increase, up to certain array sizes. The 2 x 3 array had the lowest mooring system cost per WEC out of all arrays considered, with a 60% cost reduction relative to using individual mooring systems. The 3 x 3 and 4 x 4 arrays achieved a 50% cost per WEC reduction. In addition to these significant cost reductions, the shared mooring system designs can provide advantages through smaller mooring system footprints, lower installation times, and less seabed disturbance.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Water Power Technologies Office

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 2406874

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA--5000-85698; MainId:86471; UUID:265b8135-ed5a-42f4-bcc3-2f013a397ccc; MainAdminId:73191

Journal Information:: Renewable Energy, Journal Name: Renewable Energy Vol. 231; ISSN 0960-1481

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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