The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult and Frazer-Nash Consultancy have produced a standardised approach to assessing and reducing uncertainty associated with energy yield assessment for wave and tidal energy projects.
This approach will ultimately help to reduce risk and make projects more attractive to investors.
Until now, there has been no standardised methodology or common terminology for energy yield and uncertainty assessments. The outputs from this project are a major step forward in addressing these issues and will bring substantial industry benefits, including:
Ralph Torr, Renewable Technology Engineer for ORE Catapult , said: “The perceived level of risk associated with wave and tidal energy projects is high. Being able to more accurately determine the energy output of a potential wave or tidal energy project is a key part of reducing this risk and is central to optimised project design and reducing the costs of financing. This project provides a common language and a standardised approach to assessing and reducing uncertainty.”
Neil Adams, Group Leader at Frazer-Nash , said: “We’ve worked extensively with the ORE Catapult, industry and academia on this programme.”
“We have developed a structured guidance document and intuitive tool to determine the uncertainty on energy yield simply and systematically. It helps identify key uncertainties and allows projects to be compared on a like-for-like basis. This will assist project developers and financiers decide where to invest their capital.”
The three guidance documents and the uncertainty management tool can be accessed here .