The Marine Mission Planner could revolutionise operational planning at EMEC’s wave and tidal test sites in Orkney as well as other marine renewables developments. Environmental engineering consultancy JBA Consulting and metocean scientists at the Met Office are also helping to develop the software which will be based on JBA’s ForeCoast Marine Mission Planner. This is an advanced forecasting and decision support tool designed to help guide vessel operations days, weeks and months ahead.
The aim of the project is to reduce O&M costs for marine energy technology developers. This will be achieved by optimising O&M strategies, thereby helping to reduce the number of failed maintenance missions
“Given the complex nature of the marine activities at EMEC, it is essential that robust planning strategies are in place to ensure that the costs to EMEC and our clients are minimised and that the highest standards of health and safety are met” said Stuart Baird, Operations Director at EMEC.
The software will incorporate a vast amount of operations and maintenance (O&M) data and resource models from EMEC’s test sites. The result will be a bespoke system for the management of marine operations in Orkney waters. It will utilise Met Office ensemble forecast data in order to determine the probability of mission viability, rather than basing these predictions on a single forecast or a simple no/go approach. This in turn will provide greater confidence for investors and allow consistent risk-based decision making.
EMEC’s data will be analysed by a range of algorithms against the ensemble forecast data to determine whether the forecasted metocean conditions are likely to exceed the safe operating tolerances of the mission. This will be based on breakdown of all mission components, such as lifting at port, the journey to site, operations at site and the return journey. O&M decision making will be optimised by a pioneering ‘Gamer Mode’ which will explore how different strategies would have performed if they had been used in the past.
Image courtesy of Atlantis Resources
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