Project spotlight: Sandia develops Spatial Environmental Assessment Toolkit

By harnessing the power of water, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories’ Water Power Program are helping move the United States towards its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Marine energy (ME) arrays, such as wave energy converters (WECs) and current energy converter (CECs), transform wave and current motion into usable energy. More than forty percent of the United States’ total population live in coastal communities or near rivers where ME devices have the potential to provide clean, cost-effective energy. However, ME arrays also have the potential to alter their physical environment including wave and current patterns, as well as altering acoustic levels which may impact marine life. Balancing the benefits and risks of ME deployment requires project developers to conduct site- and technology-specific environmental assessments and comply with numerous regulations adding time and cost burdens to projects that many early-stage developers lack the resources to meet.

To lessen this burden and support the growth of the U.S. marine energy industry, researchers from Sandia’s Water Power Team with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office have developed and integrated a series of open-source tools to support the assessment and mitigation of environmental risks associated with marine energy conversion-induced changes to the physical and acoustic environment. Sandia’s Spatial Environmental Assessment Toolkit (SEAT) allows energy project developers to simulate a site- and technology-specific marine environment to model the beneficial or potentially detrimental impacts WECs or CECs may have. SEAT also offers developers and regulators a way to model how different ME deployments can maximize energy production while providing protective barriers for vulnerable coastal environments. The toolkit makes it easier for regulatory agencies, stakeholders, and industry developers to effectively evaluate permit requirements (e.g., what to study, where, and when) saving time and cutting deployment costs. According to Jesse Roberts, a principal investigator for the project, “SEAT attempts to make the unpredictable predictable by incorporating numerous environmental and physical parameters and producing models showing the most likely outcomes and associated risks.” 

As part of SEAT’s development, the Sandia team met with regulatory and industry stakeholders to assess their needs and to assist them in utilizing SEAT’s full capabilities. Unlike other simulation software, SEAT incorporates device specific parameters, site-specific hydrodynamic conditions, and local receptor information to assess the potential for environmental change within a system. Sandia’s state-of-the-science numerical models (SNL-SWAN, SNL-Delft3D-CEC, Paracousti) leveraged in SEAT analysis can account for the effects of device size, shape, power extraction, sound generation, and, in the case of CEC devices, turbulence generation on hydrodynamics and interrelated processes. This tool bridges the gap between regulators’ requirements and developers’ needs. Widespread use of SEAT will allow the ME industry to simultaneously assess power production and environmental change from ME arrays in a cost and time efficient manner removing a major hurdle to industry growth.

SNL-SWAN, SNLDeflt3D-CEC, and Paracousti are available now. A beta version of SEAT will be available later this summer or early fall.