Cloud-based simulation of tidal farms for the production of electricity

The ocean possesses a tremendous amount of energy. Tidal farms - a group of multiple tidal stream generators assembled at the same location - are very promising power plants for the production of electric power. They can benefit from the knowledge and experience acquired in the domain of wind energy, but are based on a more predictable and regular resource: tidal currents. However, these farms are very difficult to engineer. Given the extreme oceanic weather conditions, the cost associated with such offshore infrastructures is very high, and a small error on production assessment can have a major impact on profitability. Open Ocean’s purpose is to bring innovative solutions to Tidal Farm developers, in order to help them assess the oceanic environment and boost the development of this promising technology. MarineCloud’s experiment was aimed at developing a new product able to produce Tidal Farm yield estimates from high-resolution oceanic current data in less than 24 hours – less than one third of the current compute time. A simple interface was developed, allowing a user to launch a high-resolution numerical simulation of three-dimensional oceanic current on a period ranging from 1 year to 10 years, at any required locations. The main challenges were to be able to produce a numerical simulation of 1 year of 3D oceanic current in less than 24 hours without compromising the quality of the data, and to reduce the number of inputs needed.