New Method Developed to Improve Testing of O2-X Drivetrain
EURO-TIDES Tidal Array Project partner Center for Wind Power Drives has presented their latest findings on drivetrain testing for Orbital Marine Power’s O2-X at EWTEC2025.
This publication explores how the O2-X tidal turbine drivetrain can be tested using existing wind turbine test benches, an attractive option but one that comes with technical challenges. Because the O2-X is structurally different from a wind turbine, it would require design modifications to fit wind-focused test infrastructure, potentially affecting the reliability of the results.
The study also highlights that offshore and subsea conditions create unique load effects that wind test benches cannot naturally replicate.
To overcome these hurdles, the publication introduces a new method that overcome the challenges that the system test benches originally built for wind turbines:
Modifying the effects of design changes in testing.
Incorporating the load influences from the subsea environment.
This approach helps ensure that drivetrain tests on wind infrastructure still reflect real tidal operating conditions.
The work represents an important step toward making existing test facilities more adaptable for marine energy technologies like the O2-X. Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.36688/ewtec-2025-710
