Evaluation of Co-Existence Options of Marine Renewable Energy Projects in Japan

Information flow to increase support for tidal energy development in remote islands of a developing country: agent-based simulation of information flow in Flores Timur Regency, Indonesia

BACKGROUND

Public awareness is crucial for successful deployment of tidal energy, a renewable energy source that can provide clean electricity to remote islands. However, considering public attitudes on tidal energy are not well known, especially in developing countries, a barrier exists in implementing public engagement strategies. This study aims to contribute by identifying strategies for information provision-the initial step in public engagement-and estimate how these can be engaged to enhance support for tidal energy among the local public in a remote area of a developing country, in this case, Flores Timur Regency, Indonesia, considering their socio-cultural background.

METHODS

In this paper, we employ statistical analyses using multinomial probit modelling to identify the key variables that shape information flow. The aptness of the variables is then verified using post-estimation techniques for their use as input parameters for the simulation of the information flow in the field study area. Agent-based simulation (ABS) is employed to replicate the actual conditions in Flores Timur Regency, Indonesia, and simulate the flow of information through the local community.

RESULTS

According to the multinomial probit estimations, the people belonging to the top hierarchical group show a higher probability to support tidal energy compared to the members belonging to the lower groups. Understandably, around twice as many information flow cycles are needed to disseminate information to the members of the lowest hierarchical group, compared to the members of the top hierarchical group. The results also show that increasing the amount of available information has a positive impact on information dissemination.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrated that information provision is highly effective with propagation of information that specifically highlights the individual benefits, rather than the community benefits of tidal energy. Additionally, savings in terms of costs, time, and efforts can be realized if the most influential members of the local community are targeted initially before including all other stakeholders. The study also indicated that locals absorb more information and increase their support for tidal energy when additional data is made available. Finally, as long-term strategy, information provision becomes most effective when the local population gains higher educational capabilities.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13705-021-00302-8.

A Feedback Control Loop Optimisation Methodology for Floating Offshore Wind Turbines

Wind turbines usually present several feedback control loops to improve or counteract some specific performance or behaviour of the system. It is common to find these multiple feedback control loops in Floating Offshore Wind Turbines where the system perferformance is highly influenced by the platform dynamics. This is the case of the Aerodynamic Platform Stabiliser and Wave Rejection feedback control loops which are complementaries to the conventional generator speed PI control loop when it is working in an above rated wind speed region. The multiple feedback control loops sometimes can be tedious to manually improve the initial tuning. Therefore, this article presents a novel optimisation methodology based on the Monte Carlo method to automatically improve the manually tuned multiple feedback control loops. Damage Equivalent Loads are quantified for minimising the cost function and automatically update the control parameters. The preliminary results presented here show the potential of this novel optimisation methodology to improve the mechanical fatigue loads of the desired components whereas maintaining the overall performance of the wind turbine system. This methodology provides a good balance between the computational complexity and result effectiveness. The study is carried out with the fully coupled non-linear NREL 5-MW wind turbine model mounted on the ITI Energy’s barge and the FASTv8 code.