EquiMar : Equitable Testing and Evaluation of Marine Energy Extraction Devices in terms of Performance, Cost and Environmental Impact: Deliverable D3.4 Best practice for tank testing of small marine energy devices

At present no common practices are adopted to assess the performance and operational characteristics of conceptual and small prototype wave and tidal energy devices when tested within controlled laboratory environments. Information acquired from this early stage assessment may be used to secure development funding or promote a specific wave or tidal energy device. Since no standards exist, the data produced may be misinterpreted or inaccurately presented, which in turn may lead to failure to live up to performance expectations, as devices scale up in size.

This report builds on Deliverable 3.3 which identified limitations of current practices adopted for tank testing of small prototype devices. The recommendations contained herein constitute minimum set of best practices for device testing and benchmarking. The protocol contains explicit Design of Experiment and Uncertainty Analysis techniques. Particular emphasis has been placed on repeatability, quantification of uncertainty, estimation of accuracy and elimination of laboratory specific effects.