Posted On: 04-12-2020
The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in the UK is leading a project to develop a system to improve the efficiency of offshore renewable energy generation golden goose falsas and help develop the Blue Economy. The Submarine High-fidelity Active-monitoring of Renewable energy Cables (SHARC) has secured funding from Innovate UK’s Sustainable Innovation Fund. The SHARC project aims to improve the operational efficiency of offshore renewable energy generation by addressing failure management of critical subsea infrastructure, in this case submarine cables. Between 2014 and 2017, recorded cable failures across UK sites alone led to a cumulative loss of £227 million, highlighting the importance of innovations to improve cable failure-management strategies.
Reducing these costs will make offshore renewables more competitive and accelerate their uptake, contributing to the UK Government’s Clean Growth Strategy and enabling net-zero carbon emissions. Furthermore, COVID-19 has increased the need for remote monitoring of assets. Remote monitoring can take place in socially distanced settings, removing the need to deploy crews offshore to operate in the tight confines of vessels. This approach is more economically efficient, as it will allow in-service fibre-optics to be remotely accessed. Additionally, it will reduce the health risks to employees by limiting their potential exposure to COVID-19, enabling the offshore renewable energy industry to ‘build back better’, NOC explains.
(Credits: www.offshore-energy.biz)
