Sea trials underway of wave energy converter, subsea battery

Offshore staff

ABERDEEN, UK — The Renewables for Subsea Power demonstrator project has connected the Blue X wave energy converter, built by Mocean Energy, with a Halo underwater battery developed by Verlume in Aberdeen.

The two technologies have been operating in a test program offshore Orkney, northern Scotland. A new four-month trial is now underway, in which they will provide low-carbon power and communication to infrastructure including Baker Hughes subsea controls equipment and a resident underwater autonomous vehicle supplied by Transmark Subsea.

The European Marine Energy Centre has supplied instrumentation to measure the speed and direction of currents during the campaign, with Wave Energy Scotland providing funds to support integration of the umbilical into the wave energy converter.

The main aim of the project is to demonstrate how renewable energy technologies can be combined to deliver reliable, low-carbon power and communications to subsea equipment, as an alternative to umbilical cables.

Supporters of the Renewables for Subsea Power project include UK E&P independents Harbour Energy and Serica Energy, and the Net Zero Technology Centre is contributing further funding.

Phase 2 involved integration of the chief technologies at an onshore commissioning test site at Verlume’s base in Aberdeen. The entire system is now being tested at sea, 5 km east of Orkney, with a view to raising the system’s technology readiness level to 6-7.

In 2021 Mocean Energy’s Blue X prototype underwent at-sea testing at the European Marine Energy Centre’s Scapa Flow test site in Orkney, generating power and providing data on machine performance and operation.

Mocean Energy Blue X lift into water at Hatston Pier

Mocean Energy managing director Cameron McNatt said, “The new test site east off Deerness offers a much more vigorous wave climate and the opportunity to demonstrate the integration of a number of technologies in real sea conditions.”

The basis for Verlume’s seabed battery energy storage system, Halo, is said to be its intelligent energy management system, Axonn, designed to autonomously maximize available battery capacity in real time.