Pre-Conference Workshops – PAMEC.Energy Association

PAMEC in partnership with key partners are hosting several workshops prior to the conference on June 17th and 18th. Attendance is free to all delegates. Indicate if you wish to attend one these sessions when registering for the conference.

1. Marine Renewable Test and Research Centres Workshop on Friday, June 17, 2022, 1-5pm

The Role of MRE Test Centers in Facilitating MRE Development

This workshop will provide an overview of the role of marine renewable energy (MRE) test centers in device testing and their capacity to demonstrate the utility of monitoring technologies and approaches for understanding environmental effects of MRE devices. The value of test centers for resource characterization, provision of offshore/onshore infrastructure and interconnection facilities for assessing MRE technology performance, and the opportunity that test centers provide for community engagement and building social license will also be highlighted. The workshop format will include presentations from leading experts and round-table discussion to foster dialogue around the value of test centers for addressing questions that are relevant to the establishment of MRE technologies regionally.

Speakers:

Dr. Daniel J. Hasselman, Science Director, Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE)
Ms. Carrie Schmaus, Marine Energy Technology Manager, Water Power Technologies Office, US Department of Energy
Dr. Dernis Mediavilla, Marine Energy Development Manager, European Marine Energy Center (EMEC)
Drs. Francisco J. Ocampo Torres & Bernardo Esquivel-Trava, Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada (CISESE)
Mr. Mateo Roldan Carvajal (Universidad Nacional de Colombia) & Dr. Oscar Andres Alvarez Silva (Universidad del Norte)

This session builds upon the first workshop held at PAMEC 2020 Costa Rica which included participation from Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy-FORCE (Canada), European Marine Energy Centre-EMEC (UK), Marine Energy Research and Innovation Centre-MERIC (Chile), Pacific Northwest National Labs (USA), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico), Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and the Dutch Marine Energy Center.

2. Data Workshops on Saturday, June 18, 2022

a) Workshop on International Data Sharing for Marine Renewable Energy, 10am-12pm

Sponsored by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and Ocean Energy Systems.

The PRIMRE team (Portal and Repository for Information on Marine Renewable Energy) from the US national laboratories will present background on the PRIMRE system with a focus on the value and feasibility of sharing data and information internationally. As research and development activities in marine renewable energy begin to become wide-spread around the world, there is a need to share information on the development, deployment, and challenges of generating power from ocean water. Several nations have developed comprehensive systems for storing, curating, and disseminating data on marine energy, including the U.S. and several European countries. Highlights of these systems were shared at a recent online workshop with systems developers, along with demonstrations of file sharing across systems. The output of that technical workshop will be shared and data resources that can be used across nations highlighted.

b) WEC-SIM Workshop on Saturday, June 18, 2022 , 1-5pm

Presenters: National Renewable Energy Laboratory & Sandia National Laboratories

Brief Description of Workshop:

WEC-Sim (Wave Energy Converter SIMulator) is an open-source code for simulating wave energy converters (WECs), jointly developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories in the United States. WEC-Sim is developed in MATLAB/SIMULINK framework utilizing Simscape Multibody to solve the multi-body dynamics problem. WEC-Sim predicts the WEC dynamics through time domain simulations based on the radiation and diffraction method using hydrodynamic coefficients obtained from boundary element method based-frequency-domain potential flow solvers (e.g., WAMIT, NEMOH, or ANSYS AQWA). WEC-Sim is developed for the purpose of predicting, analyzing, and optimizing WEC dynamics and power performance. WEC-Sim includes prebuilt drag and drop Simulink blocks that have been developed to simulate a wide range of WEC systems, consisting multiple bodies, oscillating water columns, joints, various of power take-off systems, and mooring systems. The first release of WEC-Sim was late 2014 and through continued development has become a well-established software within the marine energy community and has recently won a 2021 R&D 100 Award.

With the release of WEC-Sim v5.0 in the spring of 2022, the WEC-Sim development team plans to provide a training course to introduce new or experienced users to recent updates and code restructuring. The full-day training course will cover the following topics:

Theory of WEC-Sim
WEC-Sim Code Structure
WEC-Sim Advanced Features
WEC-Sim Application Cases
Open Q&A and User Case Specific Discussions

WEC-Sim training course participants are encouraged to download and install WEC-Sim prior to the workshop so they can follow along on their own laptop throughout the course. Installation instructions can be downloaded here, but more information can be found in the Getting Started section of the WEC-Sim website.

3) Workshop on Environmental Effects of Marine Renewable Energy, 1-4PM

Sponsored by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, CEMIE-Océano, and Ocean Energy Systems

This workshop will provide focus on what is known about potential environmental effects of marine renewable energy on marine animals, habitats, and ecosystem processes, including monitoring methods and results around devices. The information collected to date has been associated generally with wave, tidal, and large energy converters in temperate regions. The workshop at PAMEC is organized to expand on this understanding, particularly around potential effects of marine energy in tropical and subtropical environments. Presentations from the international perspective as well as the status of environmental effects research in Mexico will be given. In addition, breakout group discussions will focus on how marine energy systems (including technologies such as ocean thermal energy conversion – OTEC) will affect the marine environment. In particular, discussions will be aimed at how marine energy systems may affect the biodiversity of tropical ecosystems, and how animal and habitat responses may differ from those of temperate systems.

Prior to the workshop, if you have information on effects of marine renewable energy in the topics, consider filling in the survey linked below. The results from the survey will be compiled and presented at the workshop.

For the survey in English, click here.

For the survey in Spanish, click here.

Josue Quintanilla from El Salvador, is a professional physicist enthusiastic about the ocean energy with an rescue diver certification. Has experience with evaluation of coastal hydrodynamic and wave modeling of his county. He has also collaborated with the making and updated process of natural science books. He is currently the El Salvador Embassador for Pan-American Ocean Energy Student Network, POES.

Karina Ramirez Zamora is a Mechatronic engineer, with experience in the medical equipment industry. Currently, she is studying a master’s in engineering management at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, and working as communication assistant at PAMEC.Energy Association.