MAKING OCEAN ENERGY BETTER

Marine energy doubled by predicting wave power

27 June 2012 (University of Exeter)

“The energy generated from our oceans could be doubled using new methods for predicting wave power…[and] pave the way for significant advancements in marine renewable energy, making it a more viable source of power…[The study by mathematicians and engineers from the University of Exeter and Tel Aviv University…devised a means of accurately predicting the power of the next wave in order to make the technology far more efficient, extracting twice as much energy as is currently possible…

“…[T]echnologies to extract and convert energy from the sea are relatively immature, compared with solar or wind, and are not yet commercially competitive without subsidy. Very substantial progress has been made by the leading device developers, but key challenges remain: preventing devices being damaged by the hostile marine environment; and improving the efficiency of energy capture from the waves. This research addresses both problems by enabling control over the devices that extract wave energy…”

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“The research focused on point absorbers, commonly-used floating devices with parts that move in response to waves, generating energy which they feed back to the grid. Point absorbers are already known to be much more efficient in the amount of energy they produce if their response closely matches the force of the waves and previous research has looked at trying to increase this efficiency…[T]his is the first study that has focused on increasing the device’s efficiency by predicting and controlling internal forces of the device caused by forthcoming waves.

“The team devised a system, which enables the device to extract the maximum amount of energy by predicting the incoming wave. This information enables a programme to actively control the response required for a wave of a particular size. Because the device responds appropriately to the force of the next wave, it is far less likely to be damaged…”

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