D6.6 Standard Gap Analysis
Creators: name: Laporte Weywada, Pauline
name: Scriven, Joshua
name: Cruz, Joao
name: Hakulinen, Jarno
name: Åkerberg, Jussi
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2019
Subjects: MegaRoller; GAP; Wave energy converter

description: To facilitate the development of the wave energy converter (WEC) industry, a considerable effort needs to be conducted to establish appropriate international guidelines that can reduce uncertainties, standardise e.g. design or manufacturing approaches, and streamline the accreditation process up to commercial arrays.<br> The marine energy industry is still at its infancy, and no dedicated standards have been developed to date. Recently, a number of high-level documents that have approached WEC design and certification have been developed, in particular technical specifications e.g. from the IEC TC114 group. Moreover, more mature industries such as the maritime, oil and gas and offshore wind sectors present similarities to some aspects of the marine renewable energy sector, in aspects such as e.g. design of marine structures. A range of key documentation from such industries has therefore been used to date to support the development of WEC devices.<br> As part of the MegaRoller project, one of the key objectives is to monitor the development of technical specifications, guidelines and standards relevant to the WEC industry, and in particular to the MegaRoller technology. Such monitoring aims to guide the design, implementation and integration of the Power Take-Off (PTO) and thereby facilitating its commercialisation. In a preliminary step, this report reviews existing standards and their applicability, and documents an analysis related to the existing documentation. The objective is to identify any salient gaps and to ensure the appropriate applicability of relevant design codes during the project.<br> Overall, the review evidenced two essential differences between WECs and other, more mature offshore applications:<br> 1. Being (in general) unmanned structures, the safety factors of WECs associated with a specific failure could potentially be lower than the ones currently recommended in the standards, as the consequence of failure may be considered less critical when compared to equivalent failure in a manned structure.<br> 2. WEC subsystems may be subject to different loads, which may require consideration of specific dominant failure modes. For example, design for near resonance can led to fatigue becoming a governing failure mechanism, which in turn affects WEC reliability.<br> The high-level gap analysis provided in this report can be considered a starting point for further standardisation work, highlighting some of the key issues that should be addressed to facilitate the design and development of the emerging WEC industry. As the MegaRoller project progresses, a continuous monitoring of the ongoing standardisation effort will be performed, assessing the relevance and applicability of the specifications and guidelines to the MegaRoller project and to the WEC industry. A range of dissemination activities is also expected to contribute to informing the standard requirements, via workshops with the stakeholders of the industry, or presentations at relevant conferences or relevant events (e.g. webinars, brokerage events, seminars). Overall, the final key findings regarding the applicability of technical specifications, guidelines and standards to the MegaRoller technology (and the WEC industry in general) will be documented at the completion of the project. The final report will constitute an extension of the present document, providing a view of the most up-to-date status of the standardisation work, along with clear recommendations for the future activities.