MARINET2

MaRINET2 is a €10.5 million project which includes 39 organisations representing some of the top offshore renewable energy testing facilities in Europe and globally. The project depends on strong international ties across Europe and draws on the expertise and participation of 13 countries.

MARINET2 expands on the success of its predecessor with an even greater number and variety of testing facilities across the offshore wind, wave, tidal current, electrical, and environmental/cross-cutting sectors. The project not only aims to provide greater access to testing infrastructures across Europe but also is driven to improve the quality of testing internationally through standardisation of testing and staff exchange programmes.

The MaRINET2 project will run in parallel to the MaREI, UCC coordinated EU H2020 MARINERG-i project which aims to develop a business plan to put this international network of infrastructures on the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) roadmap.

In total €5 million was made available through MaRINET2 for 566 weeks oftesting at 54 facilities across 13 countries.

All 5 trans-national access calls for testing are now closed and have been completed. A specific online portal was used and the resulting datasets will be made available on the project website. In total €5 million was made available through MaRINET2 for 566 weeks oftesting at 54 facilities across 13 countries.

Evolving from MaRINET, MaRINET2 is working towards its vision of unlocking the energy potential of our oceans. The specific and measurable objectives of MaRINET2 are:

• Standardisation of the testing implemented by the infrastructures along with an independent verification process for analysing and approving of the results generated by the wave, tidal, offshore wind and cross-cutting systems under test in the Transnational Access programme.
• To improve the quality, robustness and accuracy of physical modelling and testing practices operated by MaRINET2 infrastructures and develop new physical modelling practices for systems and subsystems under development for Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) systems where currently no standardisation exists.
• To provide access to shared relevant Research Infrastructures related to ORE research, to foster networking between researchers in Europe through transnational access to the infrastructures and to encourage interchange and dissemination of research results through user meetings.
• To deliver new and representative sets of standardised testing procedures to be adopted by MaRINET2 infrastructure within the Transnational Access programme.
• To enhance networking between different European research infrastructures, improving capacities and capabilities through training and staff exchange.
• To design and implement an overall e-Infrastructure to demonstrate the deployment of data and virtual services within this e-Infrastructure.
• To optimise uptake and exploitation of project results
• To offer high-quality training (specific technical skills and essential generic and transferable skills) relevant for ORE to both academia and industry through the setting up and running of a short-course and webinar programme with a strong hands-on component.
• To contribute to the improvement of knowledge transfer between research centres, academia and industry.
• To develop an EU standard for education on ORE.

The project has 39 partners across 13 countries

Project reports, Datasets and other outputs. 

Personnel Exchange Programme

The personnel exchange programme allowed staff and PhD students of a MaRINET2 organisation to visit another organisation in the network to learn a new skill, improve their expertise or develop their knowledge of the offshore renewable energy (ORE) industry. MaRINET2 personnel exchange programme aimed to train people to meet the demands of the sector by facilitating learning and the active sharing of knowledge and expertise.

Short-courses

The short-courses covered a wide range of topics strongly grounded on the consortium’s expertise in the scope of MaRINET2 infrastructures. Topics covered included:

• Integrated tank testing;
• Hydrodynamics of fixed and floating offshore wind turbine foundations;
• Reliability and risk analysis of ORE technologies;
• Test and verification processes from tanks to the sea.

To view the presentations and other media visit the website and scroll down to the timetable.

Schools Outreach programme

A number of school outreach activities are being held across the partner countries during the last phase of the project. Students are getting the opportunity to learn more about Offshore Renewable Energy and design and build their own device to be tested later in the year at one of the facilities.

The participating school in Kerry, Ireland is:
Coláiste na Sceilge

For more information on these activities please contact the project coordinator Michael O’Shea [ei.ccu@aehsoleahcim]

#MaRINET2SchoolOutreach

Guidelines for Test Facilities.