TC2 Focus

Background

The SEM-REV test site, operated by Centrale Nantes and CNRS through the research laboratory LHEEA, makes it possible to test demonstrators of marine energy recovery systems in real-life offshore conditions: wave energy, floating wind turbines and hybrid technologies.

One of its research activities is to increase knowledge about the marine environment in order to acquire the necessary data to monitor and investigate the potential impacts related to the installation of Marine Renewable Energy (MRE) Demonstrators.

In order to meet this objective, Centrale Nantes wishes to acquire a multi-parameter probe to measure temperature, conductivity, turbidity and chlorophyll concentration, which are fundamental parameters for the evaluation of water quality. This probe will be deployed on an instrumented buoy anchored on the SEM-REV site and will allow a continuous, real time acquisition of these parameters.

Scientific advances and innovation

The TC2 Focus project will acquire the environmental data needed to understand, evaluate and control environmental impacts of the MRE. This will be especially relevant to emerging themes with a major stake in the field of MRE such as the reef effect. The collocated measurements carried out on SEM-REV on both environmental conditions and effects of the MRE; aim to allow comparisons and validations of knowledge, tools and methods on in situ cases.

Expected technical and economic impact

The interest of TC2 Focus project data is broad because the data acquired can be used in different ways:

The studied parameters are fundamental in the understanding of the biological cycles; they will be able to support or refute scientific hypotheses in particular within the framework of research project ANR-FEM ABIOP and MHM-EMR as well as in the project WEAMEC ECHOSONDE. The water quality data will also be used as reliable input for engineering or model calibration for the kinetic of biofouling growth coupled with MRE fatigue calculations.
The results of this project will strengthen the environmental monitoring database of the SEM-REV test site. This database provides the input of an annual report submitted to the State services;
Centrale Nantes provides some of these acquired environmental data (wave and wind data) on its website and to other monitoring networks (Candhis Networks and the WindMorbihan website). In the same way, the data acquired with the TC2 Focus project will be made available on the SEMREV website and will feed the water quality monitoring networks.
The live turbidity data will also be of used by regional social and recreational activities associations (scuba diving, spearfishing, etc.).

Key project milestones

Choice of sensor characteristics - July-October 2018
Sensor assembly and device installation - February-March 2019
Data acquisition - March 2019 to March 2020
Sensor calibration - March-April 2020
Data acquisition - April 2020 to April 2021

Results

2019 operations :

Picture taken on March 29, 2019 during the first deployment of the TC² Focus probe (Credit: Centrale Nantes/SEM-REV)

Picture taken on November 18, 2019 during the second deployment of the TC2 Focus probe (Credit: Centrale Nantes/SEM-REV)

Picture taken on June 21, 2019 during a maintenance operation (Credit: Centrale Nantes/SEM-REV)

TRL level (project start>end)

Related test facilties

The SBE 16plus V2 SeaCAT sensor and the ECO-FL-NTU sensor are standard and robust sensors that are already used by marine monitoring networks (the Marine Station and Observatory Network and the Coastal Observation Service), as well as by IFREMER (in particular within the framework of the ECHOSONDE project), at a level of TRL 8 to 9.

The future exploitation of the data produced and associated knowledge will, by its very nature, be a lower and variable level of TRL depending on the issues considered.