My dream is to be the whole of you

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My dream is to be the whole of you

I'm quoting myself today! This line is from a song that I wrote. 

It's available to watch on YouTube.


What are my plans and thoughts for today?

Well firstly I'm working on a very very hard ticket at work at the moment - that HAS to be my top priority. 

But other than that... well apart from that... I would like to review my yesterday's blog post about marine and hydro energy and software engineering and then to keep on going from there...

My dream is to be the whole of you

So digital solutions are needed for marine energy and hydropower. For hydropower, which is very historically important, and has been around for ages, and which generates and will most likely to continue to generate absolutely massive amounts of renewable energy - and for ocean energy, which is still so very much in development stages. 

For example, wave, tidal and ocean thermal sources of renewable energy are only just being rolled out, explored, implemented and discovered... I lied a little bit there in that last one because I know NOTHING about ocean thermal energy.

Ocean Thermal

A very quick Google search on this says:

"Ocean thermal energy conversaion (OTEC) is a process or technology for producing energy by harnessing the temperature differences (thermal gradients) between ocean surface waters and deep ocean waters."

Digital Software Solutions

So once again, for these hydropower and marine energy projects, they need something very special, what do they need? 

Very specific software.

What do they need it for? Planning. 

What else do they need it for? Planning, operations and monitoring, and proactive asset management. I can guess that proactive asset management means looking after their actual material and physical tools - looking after the turbines used in the sea, the ones that are harnessing the wave and tidal energy, annd so son, and the tools used in the hydroelectric power station.

Although I don't understand how software helps with this - let me ask Chat GPT.
Okay so it has a lot to say - and here are some thoughts:

Software can help with hydropower throught/by:
  • Helping us to keep an eye on equipment in real time - sensors can track things like vibration, temperature, and pressure. 
  • Predict problems before they happen - software that uses the right type of advanced algorithms and data analysis can predict when equipment or machinery is likely to fail - this helps to "plan maintenance at the right time, avoiding unexpected breakdowns."
  • Other examples include Smart Data Analysis (use software to analyse data from your hydropower systems and spot pattern, trends, or anything unusual that coud "point to potential issues or improvements."

The same question for marine (tidal and wave) energy

It seems to be pretty similar. One other interesting point they add is "understanding your energy harvesting".

Understanding your energy harvesting

  • "Software helps analyse data from tidal and wave energy systems."
  • Software can "figure out how much energy is being captured and if there are ways to make the process more efficient."

How can software be used for planning in marine energy and hydropower?

I don't want to dig into this too deeply (just yet) but one fascinating topic that came up, as I know it very well and love it very much from my marine spatial planning background (and especially with offshore wind farms!) is site selection (!!!). 

Software can help to choose the best locations for ocean and tidal installations. 

Software can help to choose the best locations for ocean and tidal installations.

Software can "consider factors like water depth, tidal patterns and seabed conditions to find the most suitable sites." That's all very well but surely the software needs experts to know this information - are these the engineers themselves? Or do they work closely with a team of dedicated experts?

As surely there is only so much you can know. 

E.g. like I am a software engineer - and I like to know lots and lots about renewable energy - and I do - but I do not want to nor have time to become an expert in site selection as well - well that is a lie - I would do it for wind farms - and maybe for the other things too.

Who uses these things?

  • Hydropower companies
  • marine and tidal energy startups
  • marine and tidal research institutions
  • grid operators and
  • environmental consultants
I see so the general trend here is that the people who can use digital software solutions in the field of marine and hydropower renewable energy are private companies, both big and small, as well as research institutions and environmental consultants.

As well as grid operators - because you know that I love, love, love the grid. As always I'm quoting from this article - it's just the gift that just keeps on giving.

I can see that there are some examples of specific solutions that are shown in the article - so it would be good to go into those tomorrow. 

Thanks! xxx

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