Abstract
This document is the first of three reports that consider the future options for an industry preferred marine energy electrical architecture. The work was commissioned by the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult under the umbrella of the Marine Farm Accelerator and carried out by TNEI Services.
Over the next few years, marine energy converters will develop from single device demonstration projects to multi-device commercial arrays. As they do, they will require a cost effective and reliable way of transmitting power from multiple machines to an onshore grid connection point. The ORE Catapult has acknowledged a need to identify a preferred marine electrical architecture that can be adopted by as many wave and tidal devices as possible. By developing a common architecture, a universal set of operating constraints and components can be identified. Having a defined set of components will allow industry to further identify areas of product improvement and development to drive down cost, increase reliability and to lower the levelised cost of electricity from the electrical infrastructure.
This report presents a landscape map and the results of a literature review. The second report (Marine Energy Electrical Architecture Report 2: Review of SSE Contractor Reports) will provide an overview of the previous concept studies carried out by ABB, General Electric and Siemens. The third report (Marine Energy Electrical Architecture Report 3: Optimum Electrical Array Architectures) will use the knowledge gained from the first two pieces of work to develop a set of preferred marine array architectures.