The objective of the ORPHEO project is to study the techniques that allow the optimisation through advanced and intelligent control of the economic profitability that can be obtained from an integrated floating Hybrid Platform that includes wind and wave energy generation and is connected to the electricity grid as part of an offshore renewable energy park.
The W2Power platform (in its different variants wind, hybrid wind-indimotricity and combined with other uses such as aquaculture), which will be studied for this optimisation is a joint development of several companies, based on the patent of the Norwegian company Pelagic Power, in which ENEROCEAN has a stake. The project starts from the theoretical and experimental results obtained in the development of wave converters and their integration on floating platforms in the Offshore2Grid project and the tank tests developed on the wave converters and the complete platform in Cork and Edinburgh thanks to the access to test tanks provided by FP7 MARINET until reaching TRL5 for the W2Power hybrid platform technology.
ORPHEO will be developed in parallel with the international WIP10+ project (Coordinated by EnerOcean, participants TTI Ltd (UK), Ingeteam Service and Ghenova and subcontracted by CTAER, UCA and PLOCAN), in which the wind variant (without the inclusion of wave converters) will be tested and which has recently been selected by the ERANET COFUND DEMOWIND consortium, to be demonstrated at scale on the PLOCAN test bed in the Canary Islands, through the WIP10+ project (“Wind Integrated Platform for 10+ MW per foundation” or “Wind Integrated Platform for 10 MW or more per structure”). WIP10+ will allow the technological demonstration of the W2Power platform in an exclusively wind configuration (Wind2Power), which will include the installation at sea of a 1:6 scale floating platform in Gran Canaria (reaching TRL6), which will serve as a starting point for the inclusion of additional uses and a test base for advanced control algorithms to be developed at ORPHEO.
The ORPHEO project includes the industrial partners active in the development of the control of the W2Power platform, INGETEAM SERVICE SA, which manages the aspects related to the control and operational life of the wind generators and will coordinate the ORPHEO project and ENEROCEAN SL which, in addition to coordinating the WIP10+ project, has developed the Wave2Power wave energy converters to be integrated into the platform and the platform’s global control system. These two companies will be complemented by the following research centres: PLOCAN, University of Cadiz and University of Malaga.
This project is funded by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness within the framework of the State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation 2013-2016/State R&D&I Programme oriented towards the challenges of society.
