The University of Alaska Fairbanks is a multidisciplinary academic institution that supports interests of local communities throughout Alaska. The use of clean, renewable energy from coastal and riverine resources could provide Alaskans in remote environments with a sustainable source of electricity. Work to study wave resources at Yakutat, Alaska and riverine energy on the Tanana and Yukon Rivers are underway to understand the potential benefits to Alaskan communities. UAF would like to better characterize the potential interactions of marine energy devices with the environment to ensure that development of these energy resources is done in a responsible manner. UAF wishes to work with Sandia National Laboratories and Integral Consulting to refine existing numerical models of both a coastal wave (Yakutat) and riverine (Tanana) system and then become trained on the development and implementation of these models. The knowledge transfer provided through this training will ensure that UAF can modify, apply, and evaluate these numerical models to assess environmental changes due to the presence of marine energy devices. The open-source models developed by Sandia, SNL-SWAN and SNL-Dflow-FM-CEC, are ideally suited for UAF’s project development goals sees the value in training students and staff on their use to support responsible site development.

UAF has conducted multiple studies of resources and environmental conditions at sites throughout Alaska that could be developed for marine energy installations. The students and staff at UAF are looking for additional tools and techniques to evaluate these sites to understand how deployment and operation of wave and/or current energy converters could interact with or change the surrounding environment. The coastal community of Yakutat, Alaska, and the riverine testing site on the Tanana River are excellent sites with a range of data to fuel model application and site evaluation. Sandia and Integral have developed a suite of tools based on open-source hydrodynamic and wave modeling software to represent marine energy devices and their potential interaction with the environment. UAF would like to better understand the use cases for these modeling tools, and has requested that Sandia and Integral train students and staff on their implementation. As part of Sandia and Integral’s development of the modeling tools, some but not all of this data has been incorporated into wave models of Yakutat coast and river discharge in the Tanana River. Training materials will be developed to highlight how the models are developed and applied using this data. Over a week-long, in-depth training course the participants will gain knowledge on basic modeling theory of wave and current energy converters, experience with developing the models, and methods for evaluating results.

This project was supported during RFTS 13.