The SHARKS[1] Program seeks to develop new designs for economically attractive Hydrokinetic Turbines (HKT) for tidal and riverine currents. Tidal and riverine energy resources are renewable, have the advantage of being highly reliable and predictable, and are often co-located with demand centers, while HKT devices can be designed with low visual profiles and minimal environmental impact. These energy-producing devices are also uniquely suited for micro-grid applications, supplying energy to remote communities and other “blue economy” or utility-scale applications. This Program is aimed at applying Control Co-Design (CCD), Co-Design (CD) and Designing-for-OpEx (DFO) methodologies to HKT design. These three design methodologies require the concurrent (rather than sequential) application of a wide range of disciplines, starting at the conceptual design stage. The technical challenges that inhibit the development of highly efficient HKT designs are mutually dependent, and require expertise from a range of scientific and engineering fields for optimization. These codependent technical challenges make HKT design a perfect candidate for CCD, CD and DFO, and will necessitate the formation of multi-disciplinary teams to resolve their inherently coupled design considerations.
This Program seeks to fund the development of new HKT designs that include, but are not limited to, hydrodynamics, mechanical structures, materials, hydro-structural interactions, electrical energy conversion systems, control systems, numerical simulations and experimental validations. Simultaneous consideration of the full problem can result in operational designs that are optimal, and suitable for deployment in a wide variety of tidal and riverine energy environments. The SHARKS Program seeks new HKT designs that are optimized within a Metric Space that quantifies the swept rotor area per unit of equivalent mass and the water-to-electron power generation efficiency, while navigating across LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy) contours of constant value or isolines. Projects in this Program will develop radically new HKT designs that offer a significant reduction in LCOE (~60%) compared to the current state-of-the-art –see Table 9. These designs will need to reduce the LCOE through a multi-faceted approach that includes increasing generation efficiency, increasing rotor area per unit of equivalent system mass, lowering operating and maintenance costs, and minimizing potential negative impacts on the surrounding environment, among other considerations. It is expected that projects will include physical testing of the critical systems and sub-systems in the water to prove the assumptions underlying the device’s design.
[1] SHARKS is the acronym for “Submarine Hydrokinetic And Riverine Kilo-megawatt Systems.”