The integration of wind turbines and ocean energy devices in combined platforms has obvious advantages but also poses major challenges. Not least is the fact that the ocean energy industry is at a very early stage of technological development whilst the offshore wind industry forges ahead. In view of this the FP7 MARINA Platform project has the objective of presenting by 2014, three combined wind and ocean energy concepts which will have been studied to an advanced stage of development.
Already the concept generation phase of the project has been completed with in excess of 100 concepts being created or identified. The concept assessment is in progress but in order to critically evaluate such a diverse group of concepts, including fixed and floating platforms with individual or multiple wave energy convertors, robust evaluation techniques were required that could grow in sophistication as the number of concepts remaining diminished.
The evaluation methodology developed, outlined in this paper, involved an initial screening process which required the concepts to satisfy five basic criteria. At the more detailed stages, physical and numerical modelling, economic calculations and technical studies were undertaken to produce the ten concept types considered to have the most potential.
