Study of concentrated anchoring, siting, system layout and preliminary cost analysis for a large scale Kuroshio power plant by the cross-stream active mooring

The development of large scale ocean current power generally encounters difficulties associated with water depth, seafloor engineering, storms and current meanders. The Cross-stream Active Mooring (CSAM) is a recently proposed new concept to overcome these issues. It features serial mooring of multiple turbines on a common tether as a linear array, single point anchoring and applying hydro sails to position the linear array across current streams over deep seafloor or seabed not suitable for anchoring construction. The CSAM can change the linear array's horizontal position to track meandering velocity core to increase system power capacity and adjust its depth to avoid storms. This paper proposes and studies a new concentrated anchoring concept of high capacity based on slope enhancement and assembled anchors to resolve issues of anchoring on rocky undersea ridges in many areas along the Kuroshio. Two new gravity anchor designs making use of seafloor landforms are devised and analyzed. Efficiency of assembled anchor blocks is analyzed and tested using models. Anchoring sites, anchor implementation and large scale deployment with an example 1 GW power plant in the Kuroshio southeast of Taiwan are discussed. A preliminary cost analysis of the anchors and of the CSAM-based example power plant is also presented.