Page 12: of Marine Technology Magazine (November 2013)

News Makai Ocean Engineering received a $3.6 million contract from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and the OfÞ ce of Naval Research for research and design on the marine renewable energy known as Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, or OTEC. Makai will perform this work at their Ocean Energy Research Center, located in Kona, Hawaii. The promise of OTEC lies in the fact that tropical ocean is earthÕs largest so- lar collector. According to Dr. Joseph Huang, a senior scientist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad- ministration, ÒIf we can use one percent of the energy [generated by OTEC] for electricity and other things, the potential is so big. It is more than 100 to 1,000 times more than the current consump-tion of worldwide energy. The potential is huge. There is not any other renewable energy that can compare with OTEC.Ó Makai will work on two initiatives to serve the ultimate goal of making com- mercial OTEC a reality: ¥ Designing, manufacturing and test- ing an improved heat exchanger for OTEC, and ¥ Connecting power from its OTEC plant to the electric grid on the Island of Hawaii Because heat exchangers make up about one-third of the cost of an OTEC plant, Makai will develop designs for an OTEC heat exchanger that is high-performance, low-cost, and corrosion-resistant. The goal is a product that is essential to de-velopers of OTEC and valuable for other industries that use marine heat exchang- ers.In addition, Makai will install a 100-kilowatt turbine at the Ocean Energy Research Center to generate OTEC pow- er onto the local grid in mid-2014. This turbine will make MakaiÕs Ocean Energy Research Center the largest operational OTEC plant in the world, and the Þ rst closed-cycle OTEC plant ever connected to a U.S. electrical grid. By operating the OTEC plant, Makai will gain operational knowledge that will aid in the design of future utility-scale power plants. Bibby Concludes IRM Work from Brunei ShellBibby Offshore Singapore (BOS) said it has completed an extensive inspection, repair and maintenance (IRM) work on Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) offshore assets. The project involved the inspec- tion of BSPÕs East and West assets and covered a total of 48 pipelines, with a combined length of 272km, and 93 plat-form risers. The work was performed by the Bibby Spring operated by BOS. The DP2 ROV Support Vessel is fully conÞ gured for IRM operations and boasts dual ROV capability, including the Atom, the lat- est compact workclass ROV from SMD. The vessel is also equipped with compre- hensive data acquisition and processing packages.Makai Continues Energy Research in Hawaii Werum Equips RV with DSHIP The new RV Mya II equipped with Werum?s DSHIP data management system, The RV Mya II, recently delivered to the German Alfred Wegener Insti- tute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), is equipped by Werum Software & Systems AG with its DSHIP data and informa- tion management system. The data management system will acquire the measurement data collected during the research cruises of RV Mya II. It will also archive and centrally provide the measurement data on shore at the AWI. Being stationed on the German island of Sylt, RV Mya II will go on one-day research cruises on the Wadden Sea and on the North Sea up to Helgoland. RV Mya II is 21 meters long and, thus, the smallest research vessel Werum?s DSHIP data management system is used on. The vessel is equipped with a vari- ety of measuring instruments and sensors as they are also installed on larger AWI research vessels. Now, all data can be acquired and administered with systems of the same type. Integration into the already existing infrastructure is ensured so that the scientists can archive and evaluate the data as they need it. Source: Florian Lange, Alfred Wegener Institute. (Photo: Makai Ocean Engineering)November/December 201312 MTRMTR #9 (1-17).indd 12MTR #9 (1-17).indd 1212/13/2013 10:22:55 AM12/13/2013 10:22:55 AM