Design criteria
Supporting cable installation in Bay of Fundy
DeepOcean
Design criteria
The Bay of Fundy has the largest tidal range in the world, varying from 6 m to 16 m over its 320 km length, with associated highly energetic tidal currents.
DeepOcean was planning the installation of interconnector cables across narrow constricted passages within the Bay, requiring marine operations limited by specific current speed and wave parameters. Effective planning and operations management required robust, site-specific operational wave and tidal current data, and estimations of likely weather downtime.
To replicate the complex current and wave conditions of the inlet, ABPmer built and validated detailed current and wave models, resolving the spatial variability along the cable routes.
Particular attention was paid to the inlet bathymetry, as the complex channel configurations and coastline were fundamental in determining the speed and direction of the currents.
In key areas of the Bay, detailed coastline position and bathymetry data were used alongside a high-resolution computational mesh. This nested approach enabled us to retain the regional model coverage, which captured the effect of the Coriolis (Earth spinning) force, causing the incoming tidal wave to be deflected towards the Nova Scotia side of the bay.
Timeseries data were extracted from the models for the areas of importance and analysed to produce statistics on current speed, direction and probability of non-exceedance, along with details of joint frequency of wave height and period.
The deliverables were compliant with the latest industry standards, specifically ISO 19901-1 (2015).
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