OPIN releases report on reinforced concrete structures for offshore renewables

A collaborative group within Ocean Power Innovation Network (OPIN) has released a new report addressing the issue of corrosion in reinforced concrete structures used for offshore renewables.

The report is part of OPIN initiative, an international network dedicated to offshore renewable energy with over 500 members, aimed at identifying future research and development opportunities to reduce corrosion degradation while optimizing socio-economic and environmental impacts of offshore concrete solutions.

The CIG which produced the report gathered 12 organizations across Europe and USA to explore opportunities (alternative rebar materials, specific concrete formulations, etc.) to reduce the costs associated with corrosion and increase the lifetime of reinforced concrete structures in offshore renewables applications.

The main objective of the CIG was to identify one or several future R&D collaboration opportunities within the CIG members and start preparing the basis for associated grant applications.

“The present report is not a comprehensive, international state-of-the-art study. The aim was to share knowledge, information and ideas amongst the CIG members. This information was collected by means of written contributions, online workshops, surveys,” the paper states.

The simplified version of the report is available for public at WEAMEC site, while a more comprehensive version is available to the CIG members, including a proposal of future R&D project (challenges, work plan, public funding opportunities).

OPIN is a 3-year initiative, running from 2019 to 2022, with the total project budget of €2.6 million, supported by €1.5 million in by Interreg North West Europe from the European Research and Development Fund (ERDF).

WEAMEC is one of the partners in this project which includes the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland as coordinator, DMEC (Netherlands), Scottish Enterprise (United Kingdom), Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (United Kingdom), Sirris (Belgium) and Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung (Germany).

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