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MAREN Project What? Who? Why? What next?. Atlantic Area Marine Economy Conference, Malahide February 7th 2012. Co-financed with the support of the European Union ERDF – Atlantic Area Programme Investing in our common future. What & Who is MAREN?. Overview of MAREN:
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MAREN ProjectWhat? Who? Why? What next? Atlantic Area Marine Economy Conference, Malahide February 7th 2012 Co-financed with the support of the European Union ERDF – Atlantic Area Programme Investing in our common future
What & Who is MAREN? • Overview of MAREN: • Modelling of marine renewable energy potential and impact across the Atlantic Area • The project is co-financed with the support of the EU Interreg Atlantic Area Programme, bringing a wide range of technological expertise. The work is ongoing and runs until 2012 (2013). • MAREN TEAM • Cardiff - Tidal Barrages & Impoundments: Dr Bettina Bockelmann–Evans, Prof. Roger Falconer, Dr Reza Ahmadian • National University of Ireland, Galway - Tidal Stream: Dr Michael Hartnett • IHC - University of Cantabria, Spain - Offshore Wind: Prof. Inigo Losada • Centec, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal - Wave: Prof. Carlos Guedes Soares • Ifremer,France - La Rance Barrage: Dr Nicolas Desroy • Other partners - Policy makers, private & public sectors
Why? • “Optimising the energy extraction potential of the marine resource whilst minimising the negative hydro-environmental impact across the Atlantic Area”
MAREN Project Overview The MAREN Project investigates the marine renewable energy forms of:- offshore wind, tidal current, tidal barrages and lagoons, and wave, in the Atlantic Area to produce: • Country Modelling Case Studies• High resolution modelling and mapping of the resource potential • Assessment of marine renewable energy device performance • Assessment of the Environmental Impact • Future climate change scenarios – for resource, impacts and design requirements • Carbon emission life-cycle analysis • Comparative analysis of EIA and SEA protocol across the Atlantic corridor
Tidal Barrage & Impoundment Studies Hydro-environmental modelling: • The Severn Barrage under different generation modes – resource and impact • The North Wales tidal lagoons – resource and impact including coastal flooding • Energy harbours along the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel Proposals: • Bridgewater Lagoon - resource potential and hydro-environmental impact • Loughor Barrage - resource potential, hydro-environmental and economic impact modelling Other ideas to work from existing modelling capabilities of: • Energy assessment • Water quality • Water speed • Flood risk • Pathogens • Fish habitat modelling
Maximum Flow Predictions With Barrage Without Barrage
Modelling Suspended Sediments With Barrage Without Barrage Spring Tide- Mean Flood
Modelling Faecal Bacteria Levelswith SS - FB Interaction & Turbidity Impact on decay rate With Barrage Without Barrage Spring Tide- Mean Flood
Offshore Wind IH Cantabria, Spain The aim of their work is two-fold: • To present two novel wind and wave re-analysis databases to be used for wind farm offshore applications. • To describe a corrective method using instrumental observations. These tools provide marine climate information for addressing issues about optimal design for offshore wind farms, such as:- optimal location, operation and maintenance strategies, etc. New Methods used: SeaWind and GOW 2.1 databases provide 21 years continuous long time series of wind and wave climate on a high resolution grid, which can be used for off-shore wind farm planning and design. Both SeaWind and GOW databases have been corrected using a parametric calibration method based on nonlinear regression These models are being used to identify key sites in the Atlantic Area based on resource potential: • Pilot study in each area – Severn, Shannon, W. France - Brest, Spain Santander, and Portugal offshore Lisbon Further work: Models for each site need higher resolution validation data
Tidal Stream Studies Hydro-environmental modelling: • The Shannon Estuary (Ireland) – resource and impact • The Severn Estuary (UK) – resource and impact • La Rance (France) - impact Proposals: • Shannon Estuary – resource potential and hydro environmental impact • Severn Estuary – resource potential and hydro environmental impact Other ideas to work from existing modelling capabilities of: • Energy assessment • Changes to hydrodynamic regimes • Tidal ellipse analysis • Climate impacts – especially flooding • Multi-scale modelling: Cylindrical coordinates; Rotated/nested grids
Wave IST, University of Lisbon, Portugal Work to date: A wave prediction system based on two state-of-the-art spectral models, WAVEWATCH III ™ and SWAN, was implemented in order to evaluate UK’s wave conditions and to assess potential wave energy extraction. Case Studies: • Wave Hub test site, Cornwall • Pembrokeshire Coast Validation tests are carried out with buoy data from the British Oceanographic Data Centre so that the model's performance can be evaluated. Further work: Refinement of the calibration with higher resolution data sets. Paper available on request.
Stakeholder Engagement Work • PURPOSE: Research is only as good as the people and environment it can help. MAREN strives to involve stakeholders to produce useful outputs with the research. • ENGAGEMENT EVENTS: • MAREN Initiation Meeting in North Wales, Feb 2010 • SEP Annual Event, Bristol, Aug 2010 • MAREN Project Meeting in Lisbon, Sep 2010 • MEP Annual Event, Pembrokeshire, Mar 2011 • MAREN sub meeting at the OCEANS conference, Santander, Jun 2011 • MEP Working Group Meeting, Aug 2011 • MAREN-ICE Business Breakfast Meeting, Cardiff, Sep 2011 • SEP Annual Event, Cardiff, Sep 2011
Outputs • Resource Maps and summary notes • Marine Renewable Energy Project Database • EIA and SEA summary • Online GIS tool • Partnership development • Between partners • Between partners and stakeholders • Between stakeholders • Reports, Publications and articles in specialised magazines
Challenges for Marine Renewable Energies in the Atlantic Area • Testing facilities • Political will • Joined up thinking • Stakeholder linkages • Accessible information for all • Marine Mammal impact understanding
Thank you Any questions?