OPERA team issues report on its first industrial workshop

The team behind the OPERA project organised the first industrial workshop during Bilbao Marine Energy Week event, aimed at learning from the first practical experiences of open-sea operation, identifying common challenges, best practices and needs.

The workshop brought together technology and project developers, marine contractors and test sites/pilot projects as catalysers of experience generation, OPERA said on 1 June.

Pablo Ruiz Minguela, Head of Wave Energy at TECNALIA and Coordinator of the OPERA project moderated a round table in which four speakers participated: Carlos López Pavón, Project Manager at CoreMarine; Sarah Thomas, Head of R&D at Floating Power Plant; Tony Lewis, Chief Technical Officer at OceanEnergy; and Borja de Miguel Para, R&D Engineer at Oceantec.

The workshop was structured in three main sections, the first providing an introduction of global challenges and research goals in project OPERA. The second part revolved around a presentation of real experiences from different perspectives: problem faced and solutions or recommendations. The workshop ended with an open discussion with panellists and attendees.

Around 80 persons attended the session.

In order to share the outcomes of the workshop with all stakeholders interested in the experience of open-sea operation of ocean energy devices, the OPERA team released the report Workshop on first practical experiences of open-sea operation at the Bilbao Marine Energy Week 2017, which presents some keynotes related to the presentation of the participants as well as the main conclusions.

The Bilbao Marine Energy Week was held from 27 to 31 March 2017.

Project OPERA, Open Sea Wave Operating Experience to Reduce Energy Cost, coordinated by Tecnalia and Ente Vasco de la Energía (EVE), received over €5.7 million through the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program to develop innovative technology solutions with the ultimate aim of reducing costs of wave energy generation by 50%.

As part of the project, a point absorber OWC wave energy converter Marmok-A5 device, developed by the Oceantec Energías Marinas, was deployed at Bimep test site in October 2016 for a 2-year testing campaign.

The main objectives of OPERA project are to collect, stream and publish 2 years of open-sea operating data of both a floating WEC, and a shoreline wave power plant.

Also, the project aims to increase OWC power production 50% and improve reliability, advance standards to reduce business risk and give access to lower cost capital, and to reduce uncertainty, frequency, risk and cost of offshore operations, among other targets.

The project involves the collaboration between 12-member international consortium.