Posted On: 27-11-2020
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $35 million for 11 projects which seek to develop new economically competitive hydrokinetic turbine designs for tidal and riverine currents. The funding has been announced as part of Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA-E) Submarine Hydrokinetic And Riverine Kilo-megawatt Systems (SHARKS) program. SHARKS projects address at least one of four generation use-cases: remote riverine energy, remote tidal energy, utility scale riverine energy, and utility scale tidal energy. Projects are encouraged to apply concurrent (as opposed to sequential) design methodologies: orologi italia replica control co-design, co-design, and designing for operation and maintenance, according to DOE, which expects that these methodologies will significantly decrease the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of the final hydrokinetic turbine design. Also, the projects will work to reduce the LCOE through multiple approaches, including increasing generation efficiency, increasing rotor area per unit of equivalent mass, lowering operation and maintenance costs, minimizing potential impacts on the surrounding environment, and maximizing system reliability.
(Credits: www.offshore-energy.biz)
