De-risking the next generation of tidal turbine blades through advanced full-scale structural testing

Renewable energy is now viewed as being the preferred alternative to electricity generation from fossil fuels. In recent years, tidal energy has shown promise as it is a more reliable source of renewable energy, compared to wind and solar, where 12 GWh of electricity from tidal energy was generated in 2020. As tidal technologies move closer to commercial viability, key components will now need to be certified. One such key component that will need to be type-certified for tidal energy is the turbine blades. Structural testing of these blades will be a central aspect in this certification. Therefore, in this paper, methodology for de-risking the next generation of tidal turbine blades through structural testing in line with international standards is presented. This methodology has been applied to a number of tidal turbine blade testing programmes at the Large Structures Research Laboratory at NUI Galway, where three case studies of three different turbine blades have been presented in this paper: (1) a large blade for a 1MW rotor; (2) a small blade for a 70kW rotor; and (3) a helix foil for a novel 50kW marine turbine. A discussion on each test, along with selected static test results, has been included in the paper, along with a final conclusion on the impact of structural testing on the development of tidal energy.