Blog: Feedback requested on new IEC Technical Specification: WEC power performance assessment

Standards and guidelines are fundamental to the development of the marine renewable sector.

In 2009, EMEC released a suite of 12 marine renewables standards and guidelines covering assessment of energy resources, performance of devices, guidelines for certification, grid connection, tank testing, and project development. More than 12,000 copies of these documents have been distributed worldwide, with 6 of them being used as a starting point for International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Specifications for global adoption as the first international standards for marine renewable energy.

As with any standards, it is important that these documents are reviewed regularly and the need for new standards identified.

As such, the IEC has released a committee draft technical specification (TS62600-102) for comment which describes how to estimate the electrical power output from a wave energy converter (WEC) at a proposed location, based on information gathered from another existing location.

It is likely that the environmental parameters between locations are not identical. The specification therefore provides a methodology that accounts for discrepancies in an equitable and transparent fashion, for arriving at the mean annual energy production (MAEP) for the WEC at the proposed new location.

The IEC committee is now seeking feedback on overall methodology, data filling methods and sufficiency, and changes of wording.

If you are interested in reading and commenting on the draft technical specification, contact info@emec.org.uk for a copy and details on how to provide feedback (deadline: 31 July 2015).

More background on standards development, and EMEC’s role can be found in the standards section of our website: http://www.emec.org.uk/standards/history/