Mojo Maritime has won the Best Tidal
Industry Collaboration Award at the 8th International Tidal Energy Summit,
on 25 November, for its leadership of the Hi Flo 4 (HF4) tidal energy vessel
consortium, comprised of Voith, Bauer Renewables, DNV GL and University
of Exeter.
Underpinned by the Technology Strategy
Board (now InnovateUK), the HF4 project set out to deliver a bespoke offshore
construction vessel (OCV), designed to make significant reductions in tidal
energy installation costs. Beginning in December 2012, the £2.8M R&D
project encompassed a number of inter-related work streams, including,
amongst other things, naval architecture, dynamic positioning, and role
equipment integration, supported by environmental analyses and crew concept
development. The project was successfully concluded in September 2014,
with the key output being a ship design for a tidal installation, operations
and maintenance vessel that meets all of DNV GL’s preliminary ship classification
society requirements. The HF4 design also meets or exceeds all of Mojo’s
design objectives, not least through its ability to dynamically position
in up to 10 knots of tidal stream and lift up to 250 tonnes with the removable
A-Frame offshore crane. Although sized and equipped for the tidal sector,
the vessel lends itself perfectly for operations in offshore wind and oil
& gas. The design fills a gap between construction vessels/ sophisticated
anchor handlers designed for the offshore market, and the smaller service
vessels (such as multicats) that have developed to meet the needs of the
marine civils industry.
Early modelling using Mojo’s Marine
Economic Risk Modelling AID (Mermaid) software is demonstrating HF4’s
game changing potential for the tidal sector. For example, in a high-energy
tidal site such as the Pentland Firth or Raz Blanchard, and using the Bauer
drilling spread and monopile foundation, early Mermaid analysis is showing
that 3 x HF4 vessels will be able to install a 375 MW commercial array
of 250 turbines rated at 1.5MW in just over 2 years. Mermaid shows that
this is less than a third of the time of 3 x conventional OCVs, thus in
addition to the installation cost savings, the HF4 technology also offers
significant early yield benefits, by bringing 375MW of capacity on-line
4 years early. These advantages show up in levelised cost of energy (LCOE)
figures and Mojo believe that, by combining HF4 and the Bauer monopile
technology, it will be possible to deliver tidal LCOEs of around £116/MWH,
a figure that is below that of Round 2 and 3 offshore wind, and close to
that of nuclear.
After accepting the award at ITES Richard
Parkinson, Mojo’s Managing Director, said: “It is not often that you
get the opportunity to make a game-changing contribution to a new energy
sector, but that is exactly what I believe we have done with HF4. Although
we are still using Mermaid, our operational planning software, to refine
our LCOE figures, we are increasingly confident that LCOEs for tidal energy
below £120/MWH are in prospect, once we get the ship into service.”
Mojo is now working hand-in-glove with
its commercial partner and major vessel owner, Hammonia Reederei, to select
a yard and commence first-of-class building with a view to bringing HF4
into service in mid-2016.