Abstract
IDOM is an international company offering professional integrated services in Consulting, Engineering and Architecture. In September 2018, IDOM motivated by an interest in increasing their know-how in marine renewable energies, absorbed the company OCEANTEC Energias Marinas S.L.
OCEANTEC was founded in Spain in 2008 from the joint venture of Tecnalia and Iberdrola. It was created around a wave energy converter technology based on an attenuator with a gyroscope as power take off system. After an extensive R&D effort, going through two laboratory testing campaigns and a ¼ scaled sea trials, in 2010 it was decided to stop with that technology in order to reassess the competitiveness with other WEC technologies in the market.
A full year was dedicated to this comparative study and based on the conclusions obtained it was decided to start with the development of a floating Oscillating Water Column technology-based device.
This Spar OWC project started in 2012, developing advanced numerical tools which were calibrated and validated with two testing campaigns in CEHIPAR laboratory, Madrid, Spain (in 2012 and 2014).
In 2016 Oceantec manufactured, installed, connected to the grid and operated a reduced power prototype (MARMOK-A-5) at BiMEP offshore test site.
The device has survived 3 winters in open waters on the Atlantic, connected to the grid without suffering any mishap, and generating the electricity that was initially expected. The prototype is the test platform for the innovations proposed by the EU funded OPERA project (H2020).
As the next step of the technology development path, IDOM has designed a commercial size device which has a larger diameter and similar draft to the MARMOK-A-5 prototype. Before going to a full-scale testing program at sea, it seemed highly convenient to perform a new lab testing campaign to reduce the risk and increase the confidence in the next development stage of development.