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Predicting next wave to extract max energy
Anne-Francoise Pele
9/7/2012 10:57 AM EDT
Marine renewable energy encompasses offshore wind, wave and tidal energy.
There are significant benefits to wave energy but progressing this technology has proved challenging.
Researchers from the University of Exeter, in the United Kingdom, and Tel Avil University, in Israel, said they are collaborating to make marine renewable energy an optimal source of power.
As part of their study, scientists claimed they have extracted energy that was more than double what is generated today by predicting accurately the power of the next wave. For that, they targeted point absorbers, which are floating devices with parts that move in response to waves.
Researchers said point absorbers are more efficient in the quantity of energy they produce if their response matches the force of the waves. Compared to past studies that aimed at enhancing this efficiency, their study focused on increasing the device's efficiency by predicting and controlling internal forces of the device caused by forthcoming waves.
Their system is claimed to give the ability to extract the maximum amount of energy by predicting the incoming wave. The data then allows a program to actively control the response needed for a wave of a specific size. The chance of the device being damaged is lessened because it responds appropriately to the force of the next wave. The upshot, researchers added, is that the device does not have to be turned off during volatile weather conditions. It's the case now.
"The next step is for us to see how effective this approach could be at a large scale, by testing it in farms of wave energy converters," commented co-author Dr Markus Mueller of the Environment and Sustainability Institute at the University of Exeter's Cornwall Campus.
The study was funded in part by the WAVEPORT project consisting of the demonstration and deployment of a commercial scale wave energy converter with a real time wave by wave tuning system.
Read also:
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Case study: Remotely controlled wind tunnel experiments with NI LabVIEW and CompactRIO
There are significant benefits to wave energy but progressing this technology has proved challenging.
Researchers from the University of Exeter, in the United Kingdom, and Tel Avil University, in Israel, said they are collaborating to make marine renewable energy an optimal source of power.
As part of their study, scientists claimed they have extracted energy that was more than double what is generated today by predicting accurately the power of the next wave. For that, they targeted point absorbers, which are floating devices with parts that move in response to waves.
Researchers said point absorbers are more efficient in the quantity of energy they produce if their response matches the force of the waves. Compared to past studies that aimed at enhancing this efficiency, their study focused on increasing the device's efficiency by predicting and controlling internal forces of the device caused by forthcoming waves.
Their system is claimed to give the ability to extract the maximum amount of energy by predicting the incoming wave. The data then allows a program to actively control the response needed for a wave of a specific size. The chance of the device being damaged is lessened because it responds appropriately to the force of the next wave. The upshot, researchers added, is that the device does not have to be turned off during volatile weather conditions. It's the case now.
"The next step is for us to see how effective this approach could be at a large scale, by testing it in farms of wave energy converters," commented co-author Dr Markus Mueller of the Environment and Sustainability Institute at the University of Exeter's Cornwall Campus.
The study was funded in part by the WAVEPORT project consisting of the demonstration and deployment of a commercial scale wave energy converter with a real time wave by wave tuning system.
Read also:
Flexing cable for wind power applications
Wind turbine industry to grow by 5.7% from 2011-2016
Green power to the people everywhere
Case study: Remotely controlled wind tunnel experiments with NI LabVIEW and CompactRIO
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iniewski
9/7/2012 12:53 PM EDT
Interesting but convoluted idea: are you actually trying to optimize the hardware position for every wave that is coming to you? lots of control required I guess...Kris
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I_B_GREEN
9/13/2012 8:45 PM EDT
Probably can be done mechanically with a lever designer on board.
most all wave energy is corrlated over time and the system could have a slow response to changing wave power capturing~90% of the added potentail energy because of the correlation wave to wave.
An array with sonar communication between could tue the nextone down stream s the wave comes in but hisrequires electronics but could imprve on what is mentione dher.
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I_B_GREEN
9/13/2012 8:46 PM EDT
clever not lever.. but kinda funny, probably would need levers in the design!
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