Bringing the Ocean to the Rockies With NREL's Motion Platform (Text Version)

This is the text version of the video Bringing the Ocean to the Rockies With NREL's Motion Platform.

This video describes the large-amplitude motion platform and how it works in an ocean-like environment.

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You are looking at the large-amplitude motion platform, or LAMP, located on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Flatirons Campus.

This device brings the ocean to the Rocky Mountains, creating a user-controlled lab testing environment for offshore energy technologies.

LAMP enables researchers and developers to learn how wave energy devices operate in ocean-like situations without needing to take the devices into the water.

Saving cost, time, labor, and reducing risk for anyone moving an offshore technology from concept to commercialization.

LAMP can emulate ocean conditions up to 2-meter wave height at all frequencies.

You can specify and control the ocean conditions, so testing that could take months or years in the ocean can be done in days to weeks on LAMP.

If something breaks, you can quickly fix it.

If a test didn't go as expected, you can precisely repeat it.

LAMP is shown here, testing the hydraulic and electric reverse osmosis wave energy converter, or HERO WEC, that desalinates ocean water into clean drinking water.

During this test, LAMP is simulating deep-water monochromatic waves that are useful for validating and tuning numerical models.

LAMP can move a test article in all six degrees of freedom, mimicking motions that it would experience at sea.

With a 10,000-kilogram load capacity, LAMP can create reaction loads with mooring lines to an anchor that drives power takeoffs to enable accurate estimates of performance loads, wear, and fatigue.

Through its ocean motion emulation, LAMP testing is much more comprehensive than traditional dynamometers and fixed test stands.

By utilizing LAMP's hardware-in-the-loop capabilities, we can also simulate wave energy converter response in a given set of wave conditions.

This is particularly useful in understanding how different drivetrain and controller configurations can impact device response and performance.

At NREL, we can leverage our real-time load and interconnection emulation capabilities to simulate applications, fault conditions, and other scenarios, which are important to evaluate the full range of power electronics and safety and control systems.

With all its large motion simulation capabilities, LAMP replaces early-stage ocean testing and ensures that when technologies are deployed in the ocean, they operate as expected and there are no costly surprises.

Now that you've seen how it works, let's get your device up on the motion platform and ready for the open ocean.

Visit our facilities page at nrel.gov/water to get involved.

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