To advance in-current marine and riverine hydrokinetic energy conversion through a step change in levelized cost of energy (LCOE), Littoral Power Systems, Inc. and its team members GE Global Research, European Marine Energy Centre Ltd., National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Eclipse Group, Inc. propose to design, fabricate and test a novel hydrokinetic energy turbine that reduces LCOE by as much as 71% compared to the current state of the art. The reductions in LCOE are made possible by exploiting a Control Co-Design engineering framework to synthesize the lowest cost of energy successes of past work and two innovations to optimize the system for low LCOE. In the Co-Design process, a system-level approach is taken to characterize and numerically optimize the system for minimized LCOE through three parallel activities. First, key design-driving loads are minimized and balanced and unwanted dynamics are negated for the most significant mass and parts reductions for a given power output. Second, dynamic interactions among system components are analyzed to determine where functions can be integrated and controls applied with greatest efficacy. Third, key cost drivers for deployment, retrieval and operations are analyzed to determine where unmanned underwater vehicle techniques have the most impact on lowering costs or increasing system availability.
