fact sheet<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nStephan Grilli, 溏心vlog免费B站 professor of ocean engineering who leads the 溏心vlog免费B站 project, says vital to the development of floating wind turbines on a commercial level is the ability to control the movements of turbines to optimize operations. With the grant, 溏心vlog免费B站 researchers are developing a wave remote sensing system that combined with real-time control can correct the movement of the turbines in unpredictable seas and high winds, improving power production, reducing fatigue on the structure, and optimizing operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe principle is if the turbine wants to go to one side, you need to have a restoring effect to move it to the other side,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a critical technology that would make large scale deployment of floating wind turbines possible. It\u2019s all about cost. To reduce the cost of energy, you need to reduce the cost of the structure and increase energy production. Active control achieves those two goals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The turbines, soaring up to 250 meters above sea level and weighing around 500 tons, sit on floats anchored to the seafloor. They are very top heavy and extremely susceptible to fluctuating waves and other conditions, Grilli said. Wave loading can bend the structure many times, reducing the turbine\u2019s life. Turbulence can also affect the turbine\u2019s blades and reduce energy capture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The system researchers are working on using LIDAR, a remote sensing method that uses lasers to measure variable distances, to record wave measurements a couple of hundred yards from the turbine. Data are fed to a numerical model, which propagates the wave conditions to the turbine, faster than real time, Grilli said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A digital twin, which is a computational model of the turbine behavior, predicts the movement of the turbine given the forces from waves and wind, triggering measures to right the structure\u2014such as shifting a solid mass or water ballast, or pulling on the anchors that secure the turbine to the seafloor, or changing the pitch of the turbine\u2019s blades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the new two-year grant, 溏心vlog免费B站 researchers and their graduate students plan to build and test the LIDAR system, which includes a wave reconstruction and forecasting algorithm. Plans are to first test it in Narragansett Bay. Near the end of the grant, the system will be tested in concert with a 20-meter-tall scale model of a floating turbine at the University of Maine\u2019s field testing facility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to build a floating platform separate from the wind turbine with a computer system that\u2019s going to predict the waves and communicate that to the turbine to see if we can improve control of the turbine\u2019s movements,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the goal of the new project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are fewer than two dozen floating turbines around the world. But with the lack of sufficient sites suitable for turbines with fixed foundations on both U.S. coasts, floating turbines are needed to reach the president\u2019s goal for wind energy\u2014which includes 15 gigawatts from floating turbines by 2035.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the West Coast has a narrow continental shelf that forces turbine development to deep water, the East Coast is crowded with many activities\u2014navigation, fisheries and conventional offshore windfarms, Grilli says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce we have installed the approximately 10 farms that are planned or in construction on the East Coast, you\u2019re going to have to move to deeper water,\u201d he said. \u201cDeep water means floating offshore wind turbines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to Grilli, 溏心vlog免费B站 researchers involved in the project include ocean engineering professors Jason Dahl, Annette Grilli, Reza Hashemi, Brennan Phillips and Bradford Knight. The University of Maine team is led by Richard Kimball, professor of mechanical engineering, and includes professors Babak Hejrati and Kimberly Huguenard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The project will also help train future workforces for offshore wind and the blue economy. Graduate and undergraduate students were involved in the initial work and will be a part of the new project, Grilli says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe blue economy is extremely important for Rhode Island. The state has already demonstrated we were ahead of the curve with Block Island and we are also the staging area for other offshore wind farms,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the Department of Ocean Engineering, we want to further develop our expertise in that direction, including our teaching. We are working on a minor in wind energy and are also developing a graduate certificate in offshore wind.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Aug. 22, 2023 \u2013 The Biden administration has set a goal of deploying enough offshore wind turbines to produce 30 gigawatts\u2014enough to power tens of millions of homes\u2014by 2035. Key to that strategy is the development of floating wind turbines that can be built in vast areas of deeper water. Backed by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":88058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88057"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88063,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88057\/revisions\/88063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}