Analysis of 10 years of SEM-REV metocean data made public

The SEM-REV offshore test site is tasked with meeting the R&D challenges of Marine Renewable Energy technologies. To this end, measurements have been made on the offshore site since 2009. SEM-REV has just published a report summarising the meteorological and oceanic data from the site, located off the coast of Le Croisic.

on March 30, 2022

The offshore test site is equipped with a range of sensors and instruments to collect measurements on different aspects of the site's meteorological and oceanic environment, such as weather buoys and instruments in nearby lighthouses for wind, ADCP systems for currents and tides, and Datawell wave buoys. Data on biofouling - the colonisation of sea surfaces by living organisms - is also collected. More than 10 years of measurements at sea have been acquired using this array of instruments.

The report entitled "SEM-REV Metocean design basis" provides an analysis of all this metocean data for engineering use around the SEM-REV site. It has been made public and is accessible to all on the Zenodo platform. The availability of this data and analysis will allow developers in the MRE sector to calibrate their offshore operations and design of their offshore structures according to weather and ocean data in Southern Brittany and the Pays de la Loire area.

The report was based on a Measure-Correlate-Predict approach and certified by Bureau Veritas in accordance with IEC standards (details in the report summary). The certification process was funded by the European Marine Energy Alliance (MEA) project. Developers can use the report to access design values such as operational and long-term statistics for different periods of return, as well as additional information (such as seasonal variability, wind turbulence intensity, harmonic analysis of tidal measurements, and other environmental parameters).
 

To date, very little concatenated design value data, as presented in this report, has been available. While a considerable amount of metocean data is publicly available, it requires extensive processing to produce design values. The report published by the SEM-REV is an additional tool available to MRE players to develop the sector and design their prototypes which will then be tested at sea.

This report follows on from the environmental impact assessment for Floatgen published in November 2021.

Full "SEM-REV Metocean design basis" report available on Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/record/6325718

Published on March 30, 2022 Updated on February 16, 2024