WS4: Arrays, Wakes and Near Field Effects

As marine renewable energy moves from the deployment of individual prototype devices to the commercial development of arrays, it is vital that array interaction is understood to enable accurate predictions of their individual and combined performance and to enable the prediction of changes in the natural physical processes in coastal waters. This is an essential input to inform accurate environmental impact assessments of the coastal zone and to avoid unnecessary development constraints, resulting from over conservative assessments of hazard.

This work stream will explore how array interaction affects the design optimisation and performance of both multiple tidal current and wave energy converters and will enable more accurate quantification of the environmental consequences of large scale energy extraction. It will generate an enhanced understanding of how the presence of multiple wave or tidal current energy extraction systems will result in localised perturbations to the energy and momentum fluxes.