Tidewright, Strathclyde and EMEC on what a test slot actually requires. Not a brochure. A checklist.
Online attendees get the slides. People in the room get the wind.
The substance is marine operations: vessel availability, mobilisation, standby costs, the probability distribution of a workable window in each month, and the retrieval plan that has to exist before deployment because it will be needed at the least convenient moment.
There is a session on the arithmetic of waiting. A three-week weather delay is not an inconvenience to be absorbed; it is a cost with a number attached, and developers who have not calculated that number in advance tend to discover it in a difficult conversation with a financier.
One of the speakers will describe a recovery operation that went badly, in detail, with photographs. This is the most useful item on the agenda and the reason the session is worth travelling for.
Running order
Approximate, and kept to.
- 10:00What a test berth actually provides, and what it does not
- 10:40Marine operations: vessels, mobilisation and standby
- 11:30The arithmetic of waiting for weather
- 13:30A recovery operation that went badly, described honestly
- 14:30Site visit, weather permitting. It may not permit
Who this is for
- Device developers approaching a first open-water deployment
- Investors and funders assessing a marine energy project's schedule risk
- Academics whose tank work is about to meet the sea
- Anyone who has used the phrase 'weather window' without pricing one