Post by account_disabled on Feb 27, 2024 0:48:05 GMT -5
Irish company OceanEnergy has already tested its oscillating water column generators on a large scale in Hawaii, and has just signed a four-year project to test, validate and commercialize its largest unit yet off Orkney in Scotland. Billed as the world's highest capacity floating wave energy device, the OE is certainly something to behold.
While dimensions of the machine to be built for Scotland have yet to be drawn up, the machine the company built for testing at a US Navy test site in Hawaii measures ft x ft, with a draft of m and a total weight of tons.
In tests, it operated at a capacity of kW, but the device had, and has, a capacity of MW. Building these things requires shipyard-level facilities, in the case of the Hawaii machine, those of the Oregon company Vigor. After construction there, the machine was towed to its test site for commissioning.
It works on a relatively simple principle. Moored to the ocean floor, the OE sits in the sea as waves rush in and out of three large airtight chambers. As the water level in these chambers rises, air escapes through the top. As it falls, the air is sucked back in.
OceanEnergy makes use of a piece of technology from Northern Ireland to harvest energy from this bi-directional air pressure: the Wells turbine, invented in Belfast in the late s. These use a series of symmetrically designed fan blades, designed to convert the pressure of air entering in any direction in the same direction of rotation. Therefore, the turbine continually rotates in one direction as air is pumped in and out of the wave chambers, rather than requiring the turbine to keep changing direction each time the air flow is reversed.
This is in contrast to the Wave Swell Energy (WSE) blowhole generator , which works on similar principles, but only collects energy from air on the inlet stroke, allowing air from the outlet stroke to ex Brazil Mobile Number List it through a valve. .
Well turbines are less efficient than unidirectional turbines, and independent analysis seems to suggest that WSE's approach of using a single, relatively cheap unidirectional turbine is likely to lead to some of the cheapest renewables in the world, so perhaps there is something in it. But it's hard to imagine that Wells' turbine would be so inefficient that it couldn't harvest more energy from the wind in two directions than WSE's device could in just one.
That little mystery aside, OceanEnergy has signed a collaboration with industry and academic partners in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Spain to test the OE at scale. Co-funded by the EU's Horizon Europe program and Innovate UK, the € million (US$ million) WEDUSEA project will run in three phases over four years.
Firstly, the team will design and build an OE rig adapted to the conditions of the European Marine Energy Test Site in Orkney, Scotland. You will then install and test the machine for two years. The third phase will disseminate the results and focus on commercializing the technology at scale. OceanEnergy has future plans for an OE machine capable of MW.
"The innovative actions taken in this program aim to improve the efficiency, reliability, scalability and sustainability of wave energy technology , and reduce the levelized cost of electricity of the technology by more than %," he said Myles Heward, European Marine Project Manager. Energy Center: "This will help reduce the risk of wave energy investments."
Rémi Gruet, CEO of trade association Ocean Energy Europe, adds: “Wave energy is now at a large-scale stage and projects like WEDUSEA are paving the way for pilot farms and the industrialization of the entire sector. As a collaborative project between the EU and the UK, it will demonstrate the potential of wave energy to make a significant contribution to the EU Green Deal goal. “Wave energy will help smooth out peaks or dips in variable wind production and ensure European energy
While dimensions of the machine to be built for Scotland have yet to be drawn up, the machine the company built for testing at a US Navy test site in Hawaii measures ft x ft, with a draft of m and a total weight of tons.
In tests, it operated at a capacity of kW, but the device had, and has, a capacity of MW. Building these things requires shipyard-level facilities, in the case of the Hawaii machine, those of the Oregon company Vigor. After construction there, the machine was towed to its test site for commissioning.
It works on a relatively simple principle. Moored to the ocean floor, the OE sits in the sea as waves rush in and out of three large airtight chambers. As the water level in these chambers rises, air escapes through the top. As it falls, the air is sucked back in.
OceanEnergy makes use of a piece of technology from Northern Ireland to harvest energy from this bi-directional air pressure: the Wells turbine, invented in Belfast in the late s. These use a series of symmetrically designed fan blades, designed to convert the pressure of air entering in any direction in the same direction of rotation. Therefore, the turbine continually rotates in one direction as air is pumped in and out of the wave chambers, rather than requiring the turbine to keep changing direction each time the air flow is reversed.
This is in contrast to the Wave Swell Energy (WSE) blowhole generator , which works on similar principles, but only collects energy from air on the inlet stroke, allowing air from the outlet stroke to ex Brazil Mobile Number List it through a valve. .
Well turbines are less efficient than unidirectional turbines, and independent analysis seems to suggest that WSE's approach of using a single, relatively cheap unidirectional turbine is likely to lead to some of the cheapest renewables in the world, so perhaps there is something in it. But it's hard to imagine that Wells' turbine would be so inefficient that it couldn't harvest more energy from the wind in two directions than WSE's device could in just one.
That little mystery aside, OceanEnergy has signed a collaboration with industry and academic partners in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Spain to test the OE at scale. Co-funded by the EU's Horizon Europe program and Innovate UK, the € million (US$ million) WEDUSEA project will run in three phases over four years.
Firstly, the team will design and build an OE rig adapted to the conditions of the European Marine Energy Test Site in Orkney, Scotland. You will then install and test the machine for two years. The third phase will disseminate the results and focus on commercializing the technology at scale. OceanEnergy has future plans for an OE machine capable of MW.
"The innovative actions taken in this program aim to improve the efficiency, reliability, scalability and sustainability of wave energy technology , and reduce the levelized cost of electricity of the technology by more than %," he said Myles Heward, European Marine Project Manager. Energy Center: "This will help reduce the risk of wave energy investments."
Rémi Gruet, CEO of trade association Ocean Energy Europe, adds: “Wave energy is now at a large-scale stage and projects like WEDUSEA are paving the way for pilot farms and the industrialization of the entire sector. As a collaborative project between the EU and the UK, it will demonstrate the potential of wave energy to make a significant contribution to the EU Green Deal goal. “Wave energy will help smooth out peaks or dips in variable wind production and ensure European energy