Risk assessment for the installation and maintenance activities of a low-speed tidal energy converter

The study presented in this paper, is part of the Deep Green project, which includes the development of a power converter/device for employment in low-speed tidal currents. It mainly focuses on the initial steps to investigate the ways on how to minimize the risks during handling, operation and maintenance (O&M) activities of the full-scale device particularly in offshore operations. As a first tep, the full-scale device offshore installation and O&M tasks are considered. The overall risk analysis and decision making methodology is presented including the Hazard Identification (HAZID) approach which is complemented with a risk matrix for various consequence categories including personnel
Safety (S), Environmental impact (E), Asset integrity (A) and Operation (O). In this way, all the major risks involved in the mentioned activities are identified and actions to prevent or mitigate them are presented. The results of the HAZID analysis are also demonstrated. Finally, the last section of this paper presents the discussion, conclusions and future actions for the above-mentioned activities regarding the full-scale device.