Marine Renewable Energy

Marine Renewable Energy:

    Marine energy (including wave energy, tidal energy, ocean current energy, thermal energy, salinity gradient energy, and ocean wind energy, etc.) will play an important role in alternative energy. As a clean and renewable energy, marine energy has little influence on environment, and it does not occupy land resources, thus avoiding many of the limitations of land occupation in the development and utilization of renewable energy on the ground, especially in densely populated region or country. What’s more, the world abounds in renewable marine energy resources with the theoretical amount of 7.0EJ/yr. there is considerable development prospects.

    This research direction will promote the development and technical progress of ocean current energy, wave energy, thermal energy and floating wind turbine power generation system, exploring the technology system of marine energy exploration and equipment design including the design theory and methods, analytical software and tools, manufacturing technologies and processes and technical standards and specifications.

Achievements:

1. Sea Energy I – a 100 kilowatts tidal current energy power plant
    After 10 years of scientific research, technical effort and engineering experiments, Sea Energy I, the trend of the 100-kilowatt tidal power plant has been operated successfully in waterways of Daishan County, Zhejiang Province. This power plant adopts a power generation device with 300kW dual trend units and the technology of a floating vertical shaft turbine power generation, both of which was independently researched and developed by HEU. The plant has the largest power generation capacity across the world, and is China's first demonstration power plant using floating scroll tidal energy.

    The construction of Sea Energy I tidal current energy power plant integrated many disciplines and fields such as ship and marine engineering, machinery, generators, electronic control and offshore installation. The plant lays a foundation for establishing related technology standards, performance and key operation system. In addition, it is of great significance in forming tidal energy plant technology with IP and in developing new marine energy in China.

2. Tidal Current Energy Power Technology
    The 150 kW tidal current power plants is the world’s largest offshore floating tidal current energy power generation unit with largest installed capacity. Through technical identification and demonstration, the plant marks the beginning of the industrial development of tidal current energy.
    After 10 years of scientific research, technical effort and engineering experiments, Sea Energy I, the trend of the 100-kilowatt tidal power plant has been operated successfully in waterways of Daishan County, Zhejiang Province. This power plant adopts a power generation device with 300kW dual trend units and the technology of a floating vertical shaft turbine power generation, both of which was independently researched and developed by HEU. The plant has the largest power generation capacity across the world, and is China's first demonstration power plant using floating scroll tidal energy.

3. The Key Technology of Offshore Wind Power Generation
    With the gradual shift of wind power plants from land to sea, offshore wind power technology has also developed from the shallow coastal waters to offshore deepwater and offshore wind turbine has become reality rather than mere a concept. However, a series of new problems brought by the offshore wind power generation have aroused extensive attention from both academic and industrial fields. Accordingly, the construction of offshore wind turbine and power plant and the research of related basic science and technology issues have become new areas of development in wind power industry.
    In 2007, Harbin Engineering University cooperated with CNOOC in the project “the demonstration project of Bohai oilfield offshore wind power generation”. The project established China’s first offshore wind turbine. In 2009, the natural science funds project “offshore floating wind turbine platform and coupling motion studies” undertook by HEU completed all research tasks, including computer program design, water tank model experiments, successfully concluding the project with significant research achievements.

Future Research Directions:
（1）offshore wind power generation technology;
（2）marine current energy generation technology;
（3）marine wave energy generation technology;
（4）marine thermal energy generation technology;
（5）marine energy technologies in common.