UMACK is being funded by Scottish Enterprise and the Swedish Energy Agency with co-funding from the OCEANERA-NET COFUND (via the European Commission under Horizon 2020). UMACK brings together leading wave and tidal energy developers, CPO (wave) and SME (tidal), mooring experts TTI Marine Renewables, the world’s leading ocean energy test and verification facility the European Marine Energy Centre, and marine renewable energy modeling experts at the University of Edinburgh. A user-group involving additional wave and tidal developers will be providing use-case guidance and have access to the results, to ensure sector wide impact from the project. Led by CPO, the joint industry effort will develop and demonstrate a remotely operated, technology agnostic, quick connect, technical anchor and smart mooring system for multiple seabed types, applicable to a wide range of marine energy technologies. This will be coupled with a streamlined marine operations strategy focused on simplifying vessel requirements, reducing cycle time for connection and retrieval of devices while increasing operational windows. The project will also demonstrate how the improved strategies and reduced downtime afforded by the system will ultimately decrease the levelized cost of electricity and potentially increase energy return on investment. The anchor solution will undergo an extensive verification and validation campaign including subsystem testing followed by open sea testing. The UMACK system will be installed at a wave energy site and first demonstrated using an “empty” CPO C4 WEC hull. Following successful project delivery a PTO will be integrated into the C4 hull, and the UMACK system will be verified with an integrated WEC device.
A project to explore the reliability, affordability, installation and reliability of ocean wave energy, has been launched with the help of EU funding. The Universal Mooring, Anchor and Connectivity Kit Demonstration project brings together wave and tidal energy developers CorPower Ocean and Sustainable Marine Energy Partner, mooring expert TTI Marine Renewables, the European Marine Energy Centre and the University of Edinburgh. It will seek to demonstrate a remotely operated, technology agnostic, technical anchor and smart mooring system, which can be connected quickly and applied to multiple seabed types. Other project funders include the Swedish Energy Agency and Scottish Enterprise.