Weber, J. and Costello, Ronan and Ringwood, John (2013) WEC technology performance levels (TPLs)- metric for successful development of economic WEC technology. Proceedings EWTEC 2013. ISSN 2309 - 1983

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Abstract

The paper discusses the importance of the Technology Performance Levels (TPLs) as an essential metric for the assessment and quantification of the techno - economic performance at all stages of the wave energy converter (WEC) technology development and its significance to the successful deve lopment of economic technology. TPLs provide an integral technology assessment of all cost and performance drivers grouped into the five high level categories of acceptability , power conversion efficiency, availability , capital expenditure (CapEx) and lifecycle operational expenditure (OpEx), while broadly inversely related to cost of energy (CoE). Following previous introduction of the TPLs in [1], used alongside the Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) in form of the TRL – TPL – Matrix visualisation providing a useful means for the evaluation, comparison and discussion of different research technology development trajectories over the technology readiness and performance levels plane, this paper recaps on the motivation for introduction and use of TPLs and extends their description through their fundamental principles. TPLs are applicable at all development stages over all TRLs and the associated techno - economical WEC technology assessments are described over a range of TPLs. The value of technology is discussed with respect to investability while under development and marketability when at product stage. It is shown that the combined consideration of both TRL and TPL are of the essence in order to a) identify requirements of WEC technology for successful entry and survival in the electricity market and b) assess actual value technology under development when crucial investment and funding decisions are made .

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Wave energy converter; technology assessment; Technology Performance Level; TPL; Technology Readiness Level(TRL); TPL–TRL–matrix; WEC technology value map; techno-economic performance; marketability; investability;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Electronic Engineering Faculty of Science and Engineering > Research Institutes > Centre for Ocean Energy Research
Item ID:	6793
Depositing User:	Professor John Ringwood
Date Deposited:	14 Jan 2016 10:42
Journal or Publication Title:	Proceedings EWTEC 2013
Publisher:	EWTEC
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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