RESOURCECODE preps one year of hindcast data for marine toolbox

The RESOURCECODE project has made a significant step forward with the first year of hindcast data being produced for the project’s marine data toolbox and the development of the new online platform.

RESOURCECODE, funded by Ocean Energy
Era-Net Cofund, aims to support the investment and growth in the wave and tidal
energy sector through the creation of an integrated marine data toolbox.

The toolbox, due to be launched in 2021, is
using 28 years of hindcast wave data from across North West Europe.

It will provide technology developers and supply chain companies with world leading resource characterisation, enabling them to improve engineering designs, optimise operations in highly demanding marine environments, and increase investor confidence, according to project partner European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC).

Ifremer, another partner of the RESOURCECODE consortium, released the preliminary dataset by running WaveWatch III after having implemented a specific configuration of the model.

This one-year preliminary dataset will be
used by all the partners of the project to finalise the validation of the model
against in-situ wave buoys and remote sensing datasets (altimeters and SAR).

The year 2017 was selected for this first
test as it provides the largest number of relevant in-situ and satellite
reference datasets at the disposal of the project partners, allowing for a more
thorough validation.

The configuration of the RESOURCECODE model
is based on a high resolution unstructured grid (composed of triangles of
different sizes depending on location and water depth), extending from the
south of Spain to the Faroe Islands, and from the western Irish continental
shelf to the Baltic Sea.

Forcing winds are extracted from the ERA5
database while the currents and water levels are recomposed from a database of
harmonics of tidal currents (MARS and FES2014 models).

Ultimately, the RESOURCECODE partners will
produce a 28-year metocean database covering the period from 1993-2020 with an
hourly time step. A set of 39 global parameters, as well as the frequency
spectra, will be made available as an output at each of the 328,000 nodes of
the grid, while directional spectra will be made available on a coarser grid.

Mickael Accensi, Research Engineer at Ifremer and Coordinator of the RESOURCECODE Metocean database development, said: “The delivery of this one-year dataset is a major step forward in the development of the RESOUCECODE toolbox. The preliminary evaluation of the model configuration shows significant improvements compared to other existing databases.

“We are confident that the final 28-year dataset, combined with the RESOURCECODE marine data toolbox will provide the most adapted and integrated solution for ocean renewable energy developers”.

The RESOUCECODE toolbox will be available
on a new online platform and will enable easy access to the data, while the
extended implemented library will allow online analysis dedicated to refined
resource assessment and offshore energy converters design and optimisation.

Aside from EMEC and Ifremer, the
RESOURCECODE project brings together Ocean Data Lab, SmartBay Ireland, Centrale
Nantes, University College Dublin, University of Edinburgh and INNOSEA.