Progress reported for MARLIN Star project

The partner organisations, which include Frontier Technical, Durham Energy Institute at Durham University, The Energy and Resources Institute (New Delhi, India), Tension Technology International, Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and Plymouth Marine Laboratory, all reported on progress and plans to the funding agency, UKRI Innovate UK.
 
Extensive fieldwork has been conducted in St Martins Island (Bangladesh) and Gujarat State (India), with coastal communities interviewed about their energy needs and practical requirements for operation and maintenance being fed directly into the design specifications for a prototype ‘Floating Energy Platform’.
 
The first modular prototype will be an example of what can be built with ‘Controllable Float Modules’ and the information gathered is highlighting opportunities for communities to use electric cooking, lighting, refrigeration and marine and land propulsion to reduce their reliance on fossils fuels.
 
Trials are planned to be carried out in Smart Sound Plymouth in early 2022, preceded by drydock ballast system tests with the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult at their extensive facilities in Blyth, Northumberland.
 
The review meeting was supported by test work recently carried out by Plymouth University and Liverpool University students at the COAST ocean wave basin and the 20th static scale-model tests at PML.
 
Frontier Technical’s Trevor Hardcastle commented: “The project team and associated organisations are excited about the possibilities of configuring different types of energy platforms matched to specific oceanographic and meteorological conditions for specific requirements and addressing several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals”.