Blue Star ocean energy technology

Following 18 months at sea testing, Blue Star is now commerically ready for deployment!

Ocean energy is fundamentally an enabler: providing local, reliable, renewable power and communications offshore, right where it is required. Ocean energy technology can be used to decarbonise existing assets and to electrify new developments that rely on, for example, all-electric systems and subsea resident vehicles like AUVs.

Our first product, Blue Star, is based on learning accumulated through our Blue X prototype. Blue Star is:

• A floating, asymmetric, hinged raft with sloped sections at the front and rear called "wave channels", and a generator inside the hinge.
• Waves cause a reciprocating motion about the hinge; this is damped and taken off as electrical energy via the generator, then exported via umbilical.
• AI-optimised based on in-house software, resulting in high response sensitivity in a wide range of seas, enabling continuous power delivery.
• Validated in wave tanks and at full-scale via successful rounds of at-sea trials - the first in 2021 and the second since February 2023 (ongoing).
• Third party selected versus competition - via internationally recognised IEA-OES evaluation criteria, Mocean Energy technology has been competitively selected through 5 stage-gates in two major wave energy pre-commercial procurement programs.
• A hybrid device that combines wave and solar energy, with energy storage on-board (and subsea), to provide continuous power to assets.

Our design process and learning-by-doing approach have unlocked key technology benefits:

• Survivability - the WEC is passively survivable; it dives through steep ("extreme") waves to shed loads and avoid slamming; no end-stops or active braking are required.
• Reliability - the WEC is a simple system with fundamentally two moving parts; it has been engineered based on a 25-year design life; the mooring is not particularly stressed as the WEC does not require to react against it for power conversion (it is 'self-referencing').
• Deployability - the combination of broad response to different waves and high survivability means the WEC is deployable in a vast range of global locations; self-referencing characteristics and slack mooring means it is depth agnostic; it passively weathervanes to align itself with dominant wave direction.
• Integrability - high level of subsea system integration (see below); proven integration of solar panels on deck to feed comms, hotel loads, and mitigate seasonality of wave resource.

By combining wave, solar and onboard (and/or subsea) batteries, we can quickly re-establish stranded assets (e.g. shut-in wells due to electrical/communications failures), and replace long umbilicals, avoiding lengthy lead-times and the significant cost and carbon impact of tying these back to shore. We can power sensors for CCS leak monitoring, decommissioning activities, and many more applications. The combined impact is a combined reduction of costs and emissions, both direct (from power generation) and indirect (e.g. from manned vessel use and cables).

Mocean Energy has successfully completed a flagship collaboration project called Renewables for Subsea Power (RSP). 

This is a world first joint industry project supported by Net Zero Technology Centre, demonstrating successful subsea system integration to power a micro-grid. System integration has historically been - and remains - a notable challenge for the energy transition; it is also a huge opportunity to pioneer and prove novel offshore solutions via wave energy.

RSP brings together technology developers (which Mocean Energy leads), a Tier 1 integrator, and five operators, including two super majors. This full-scale first-of-a-kind commercial system is demonstrating power and over-the-horizon communications from wave energy to a subsea battery, AUV, and subsea control module. Our WEC has already been proven to TRL8 after at-sea trials in 2021; RSP is taking the complete system to TRL 7-8. 13 months of offshore operational time has been achieved, following initial deployment 3.5 nautical miles east from Orkney (Scotland) in February 2023. This boosts our overall at-sea track record to 18 months of cumulative deployment.