Advances in Offshore Renewable Energy

This course will begin by introducing offshore environments and reviewing different types of exploitable marine and offshore renewable energy resources. Then, the technology advances in utilising offshore wind power, wave energy, and tidal current energy will be introduced, respectively. Following this, the course will be focused on introducing the most recent research achievements in the field of offshore wind power. The relevant lectures will cover the advanced design of offshore wind power system, the reliability, operation and maintenance of offshore wind turbines, as well as the most advanced technologies used for protecting offshore wind turbines in harsh offshore environments.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Engineers and scientists involved in the design, operation and assessment of offshore structures.

PROGRAMME

DAY 1

09.00 – 10.30 Lecture 1: Introduction of marine and offshore environments
Dr Wenxian Yang
Introduction of various marine and offshore environments with the focus on the description of wind, wave, and tidal current.

10.30 – 10.45 Break

10.45 – 12.15 Lecture 2: Overview of marine and offshore renewable energy resources
Dr Wenxian Yang
Briefly review of different types of exploitable marine and offshore renewable energy resources and the current progresses on utilising them.

12.15 -13.30 Lunch

13.30 – 15.00 Lecture 3: Design of offshore wind power system
Dr Wenxian Yang
Use practical examples to introduce the design of different concepts of wind power systems, either bottomfixed or floating, gear-driven or direct drive. Discuss their merits and limitations and finally, predict the design of the future offshore wind power system.

15.00 – 15.30 Break

15.30 – 17.00 Lecture 4: Design of wave energy converters and tidal current turbines
Dr Wenxian Yang
Use practical examples to introduce the design of different concepts of wave energy converters and tidal current turbines, either bottom-fixed or floating. Discuss the challenges and issues existing in the current practice and finally, predict their designs and development tendencies.

DAY 2

09.00 – 10.30 Lecture 5: Reliability of offshore wind power systems
Dr Wenxian Yang
Following the brief introduction of reliability and reliability assessment methods, the reliability of different concepts of offshore wind power systems will be discussed by using practical examples. Based on the discussion, the future reliability design of offshore wind power system will be predicted.

10.30 – 10.45 Break

10.45 – 12.15 Lecture 6: Operation and maintenance of offshore wind turbines – Part 1
Dr Wenxian Yang
Introduction of offshore wind farm SCADA system, the advanced wind turbine condition monitoring techniques, as well as the condition monitoring techniques developed based on wind farm SCADA system.

12.15 -13.30 Lunch 13.30 – 15.00 Lecture 7: Operation and maintenance of offshore wind turbines – Part 2
Dr Wenxian Yang
Introduction of different offshore wind farm and wind turbine access systems. Discuss the merits and limitations in the practical application of these system, and introduce the recent progress on the research of these systems.

15.00 – 15.30 Break 15.30 – 17.00 Lecture 8: Operation and maintenance of offshore wind turbines – Part 3
Dr Wenxian Yang
Introduction of a variety measures that are taken for protecting offshore wind turbines from being damaged in their operation in harsh marine and offshore environments. Discuss their merits and constrains, and predict the future research and development tendencies in the relevant field.

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Dr Wenxian Yang: Dr Wenxian Yang obtained his PhD degree from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 1999. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in offshore renewable energy at Newcastle University. Dr Yang is a chartered engineer, the Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, the member of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. With expertise in marine and offshore renewable energy, he has consistently strived to lower the Cost of Energy of offshore renewable power by developing various approaches using the knowledge in multiple disciplines, e.g. increasing availability and reducing operation and maintenance cost of offshore wind turbines by developing advanced condition monitoring techniques; assuring the safety of the fixed foundation of offshore wind turbines by designing and developing countermeasure devices against scour caused by tidal current; improving the power generation efficiency of wind and tidal turbine by developing biomimetic airfoil/hydrofoil technologies; increasing the economic return of offshore floating wind turbines by developing motion-stable floating platform technologies. Recently, in order to meet the urgent requirement by the rapidly growing offshore wind market, Dr Yang’s research interest is also extended to addressing the challenging issues existing in the design and application of offshore wind farm support vessels. For example, in view of the unsatisfactory seakeeping performance of offshore wind farm crew transfer vessel, he has developed a new costeffective technique dedicatedly for stabilizing wind farm crew transfer vessels; to enable quickly access to those offshore wind turbines located at far offshore distance whilst costing less fuel and achieving better seakeeping performance, he developed a number of innovative ship design techniques and successfully supervised 6 postgraduate research theses to address the issue. In 2017, his research on the ageing issues of wind turbine components and assemblies was identified by Renewable Energy Global Innovation as a key contribution to the excellence in renewable and clean energy research. Besides these, Dr Yang endeavours to develop research in the cutting-edge area of renewable energy also through collaborating with the scientists and experts working in different fields. For example, he worked together with the material and chemical engineering scientists of the universities of Newcastle, Durham and Northumbria and successfully established the ‘Northeast Centre for Energy Materials’ funded by EPSRC in 2017. So far, Dr Yang has published over 100 papers in top journals. According to the latest survey of Google Scholar, his papers have been cited 1652 times since 2014. Dr Yang’s successful research has also attracted great interest from industrial partners. For example, Dr Yang was funded by Innovate UK to lead a 3-year Knowledge Transfer project (2014-2017) in order to help Offshore Renewable Energy CATAPULT Centre (ORE-CATAPULT) to improve the safe operation of their offshore wind turbines. In the meantime, Dr Yang is also active in other academic activities.

Duration: 2 Day

Cost: £795 + Vat

Advances in Offshore Renewable Energy Training Scotland, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness, Aberdeen and onsite course available throughout the UK.