Two universities in the UK plan to install a prototype wave energy converter in the North Sea.

The MU-EDRIVE project is part of eight schemes funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation.

It is a collaboration between Dr Serkan Turkman and Professor Jeff Neasham at Newcastle University and Professor Markus Mueller from the University of Edinburgh and aims to demonstrate how to upscale all electric drive trains for wave energy converters.

The project is led by Newcastle University’s Dr Nick Baker, who said: “With regards to achieving the ambitious goal of net zero by 2050, it is essential to look at the energy system as a whole.

“Wave energy originates from solar energy as the sun heats the land, the land heats the air to create wind and wind creates waves.

“Wave energy can therefore be considered as ‘energy dense’ and could be a significant factor in moving away from traditional energy sources.”  

The Newcastle team will next year install a generator and power converter to a buoy mounted 3km off the Northumberland coast at Blyth for a 12-month period.

Once installed, the prototype wave energy converter will provide vital operational data while testing the newest corrosion and anti-fouling technologies which will progress the understanding of the robustness of wave energy converters in situ.

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The Edinburgh team will design, build and test a magnetic gear in partnership with Edinburgh-headquartered Mocean Energy to demonstrate upscaling of electrical power take off systems.

The project will also show how ‘marinisation’ and magnetic gearing technology can be scaled up to larger power levels and integrated more fully into wave energy converters. 

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Dr Baker, who is Reader in Emerging Electrical Machines & Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University, added: “The upscaling aim of the MU-EDRIVE project will help to reduce costs of energy production as devices get larger, making the energy both easier and more affordable for access and usage.

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“It’s hard to know what a wave energy device will look like in ten years’ time. Thinking back to ten years ago, offshore wind turbine technologies were in their infancy – this could be the same for wave energy now.”

Recent government recognition in the UK has led to a surge in skills and advanced technology across the power electronics machines and drives sectors, which Dr Baker said is “the natural pathway is to apply these skills to the marine energy sector”.

He added that knowledge from the electrification of the automotive industry, such as developing motors and generators, could easily transfer into the marine energy market. 

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A floating Lidar system designed to gather offshore wind data continued to successfully operate while deployed during a typhoon.

Details just released reveal how the buoy containing the Lidar (light detection and ranging) device continued working while in the midst of extreme conditions during typhoon Hinnamnor, which hit Japan and South Korea last September and became the first category-5 storm of 2022.

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The Floating Lidar EOLOS device was deployed off Jindo, on the southern coast of South Korea, and recorded wind gusts of 125km/hr and wave heights of 11m.

The EOLOS FLS200 – developed by Spanish firm EOLOS and ZX Lidars from the UK – was deployed in support of offshore wind developments in the region.

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The buoy features an integrated ZX 300M wind Lidar has been purposely designed exclusively for the needs of the offshore wind industry, which the companies state ensures proper dynamics for wind measurements up to 300m above sea level even in the most challenging conditions.

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If Great Britain installed 10GW of ocean energy it could save £1.46bn per year in power system dispatch costs and also slash emissions by millions of metric tonnes.

That’s one of the conclusions of the pan-European EVOLVE project, a marine energy research study involving world-leading academics, research institutions and technology developers.

The findings provide a solid case for accelerating the deployment of ocean energy in Europe’s future energy system.

The spatial modelling study focused on three specific territories: Great Britain, Ireland and Portugal, identifying close to 60GW of practically viable wave energy and 10GW of tidal stream energy.

More specifically, results show resources of 34.8GW in Great Britain, 18.8GW in Ireland and 15.5GW in Portugal.

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The research team said the results show a consistent pattern with increases in ocean energy reducing overall system dispatch costs – including the cost of delivered fuel, and other variable operation and maintenance – and annual carbon emissions.

These system benefits are due to the offsetting of ocean energy availability with other renewables such as wind and solar.

It was found that a more diverse mix of renewables, including ocean energy, results in a more consistent renewable production profile which is better able to meet hourly electricity demands, key for reaching future international net zero targets.

The two-year initiative was led by Aquatera with support from WavEC Offshore Renewables, Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) and The University of Edinburgh, along with wave and tidal energy developers CorPower Ocean and Orbital Marine Power.

EVOLVE Technical Manager Dr Shona Pennock, who also serves as a Research Associate in Marine Energy within Edinburgh University’s Policy & Innovation Group, said: “There has been much commentary in recent years about the potential benefits of adding wave and tidal to the broader energy system, but this has been hampered by limited quantifiable studies.

“The EVOLVE Project aimed to directly address this point producing tangible results in terms of the costs and carbon savings associated with deploying ocean energy into future low-carbon energy mixes.”

She added that the “key headline from the EVOLVE Project is that including a higher proportion of ocean energy within our future electricity system consistently results in higher renewable dispatch, for the same total renewable energy availability, due to the offsetting of wave and tidal with wind and solar generation”.

“The ability to dispatch more renewables also results in lower fossil fuel and peaking plant dispatch, and thus lower total dispatch costs and carbon emissions.”

Swedish wave energy developer CorPower Ocean and Scottish tidal stream energy developer Orbital Marine Power contributed significant internal ocean energy data.

Analysts used these data sets to create a hypothetical generation series, calculating the potential impact of ocean energy on the overall energy system.

Evidence shows that wave energy supplies higher volumes of power when wind energy dips and that tidal stream generation is completely decoupled from wind; meaning a combination of ocean and wind profiles provides greater value, rather than working in isolation.

Anders Jansson, Head of Business Development at CorPower Ocean, said the EVOLVE report places further academic weight behind the case for ocean energy, helping inform decision makers across Europe.

“The key challenge in the race to net-zero and 24/7 Carbon Free Energy lies in the supply of consistent and stable renewable energy.”

“By modelling future power system scenarios across Europe, the EVOLVE Project has been able to clearly demonstrate the role ocean energy can play in the future, ensuring a more cost-effective matching of energy supply and demand.

“Wave energy, in particular, has been found to correlate best to peak demand and could improve overall system security. This is particularly pertinent given the current climate and broad demand to ease reliance on gas imports.”

Oliver Wragg, Commercial Director at Orbital Marine Power said: “We know that the tides rise and fall like clockwork and can be predicated hundreds of years into the future.  “With the results of the EVOLVE project, we now also have clear projections for how the additional of predictable stable power generation from Europe’s fantastic tidal stream resource can help to cost effectively reach our net zero ambitions”.

THE EVOLVE Project has received support under the framework of the OCEANERA-NET COFUND project, with funding provided by Scottish Enterprise, the Swedish Energy Agency and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.

The OCEANERA-NET COFUND project has also received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

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The estimated $150 million power station would be Turkey’s first grid-connected wave energy station, and according to Eco Wave Power, upon completion would be the world’s largest wave energy power station.

The agreement will see Ordu Enerji assign nine suitable breakwaters to Eco Wave Power for a period of 25 years, while Eco Wave Power will build and commission the power plant and sell the electricity to be generated according to an approved production quota.

The 77MW power station is planned to be constructed in several stages, starting with an up to 4MW pilot station.

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Inna Braverman, founder and CEO of Eco Wave Power said in a statement: “…this relationship will allow us to provide clean electricity from Turkish waves, for the very first time. With ambitious sustainability goals and regional proximity to our headquarters, Turkey is an interesting location to further implement and develop our innovative wave energy technology.”

Since 2019, Ordu Enerji, a subsidiary of Ordu Metropolitan Municipality, has increased its focus on developing and deploying renewable energy technologies.

Mustafa Kemal Macit, president and CEO of Ordu Enerji commented: “With the goal to build a self-sufficient grid, Ordu sees Eco Wave Power as an important asset to fully realizing our potential for 100% clean energy. The entire municipality of Ordu is excited to fully realize the sea’s potential and use its unlimited source of energy to power our electrical grid. This project demonstrates that Ordu Enerji is committed to investing in innovative clean energy technologies.”

Mustafa Kemal Macit, president and CEO of Ordu Enerji and Sefa Okutucu, Head of Environmental Protection and Control Department of Ordu Municipality, visited Eco Wave Power’s newest grid-connected power station in the Port of Jaffa in Israel. This visit was followed by an official signing ceremony held at Eco Wave Power’s offices in Tel Aviv.

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Through the collaboration the two companies plan to instal microgrids and marine power systems that can provide baseload renewable power solutions in remote areas.

The microgrid systems will include Schneider Electric’s energy storage and smart microgrid controllers, which will be integrated with ORPC’s RivGen river current based power systems.

“The combination of ORPC’s RivGen power system and Schneider Electric’s energy storage and smart microgrid controller can serve as a powerful tool to address climate change,” says Alexandre Paris, senior vice president and COO of ORPC.

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“For communities already using diesel generators, this system can provide a baseload energy solution and replacement for existing systems.”

ORPC reports receiving inbound interest in its power systems from over 40 countries and together with Schneider Electric’s global reach, the two companies envision building a global pipeline of projects for communities without access to electricity or which rely on diesel powered off-grid systems.

Bala Vinayagam, SVP Microgrid Line of Business from Schneider Electric, says the ability to provide cutting-edge sustainable solutions like ORPC’s RivGen power system paves the way to establish marine energy as a commercially viable solution in the renewable energy mix.

“The path to net zero includes many forms of decarbonisation and having microgrid systems with ORPC’s technology only widens the impact on what our solutions can provide.”

Schneider Electric and ORPC are already working on implementing the solution with the remote, tribal community of Igiugig, Alaska. When the project is completed in the summer of 2023, the system should form the grid for the community, moving the existing diesel generators to back-up and enabling the village to operate without diesel for up to 90% of the time.

In Igiugig, ORPC’s RivGen system has proven successful operating through three winters with temperatures going as low as -40^oC.

Schneider Electric supplied a battery energy storage system with EcoStruxure microgrid operation.

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In a key highlight of the scientific testing programme to date at EMEC’s Scapa Flow test site, the Waveswing wave energy converter captured average power over 10kW and peaks of 80kW during a period of moderate wave conditions.

According to AWS, these figures exceeded the developer’s predictions by 20%.

Other key findings underline the survivability potential of the subsea Waveswing which continued to deliver power in poor weather conditions.

The testing programme also demonstrated that deployment of the Waveswing from sitting on the quayside to being installed and fully operational is possible in under 12 hours.

The current phase of sea trials is scheduled to complete by the year end and AWS is looking to re-deploy for further testing early in 2023.

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Simon Grey, CEO of AWS Ocean Energy said: “While we have always been confident about the performance potential of the Waveswing, it is wonderful to see that confidence endorsed by real data. We believe this performance compares very favourably with equivalent figures for any previous wave device tested on the same site.

“We are now actively seeking discussions with commercialisation partners, other end users and anyone who is genuinely interested in developing commercial wave power.”

How Waveswing works

When installed, the device is moored to a gravity-base anchor on the seabed using a single tension tether and sits around three metres below the surface.

The Waveswing generates energy by reacting to changes in pressure caused by passing waves.

The subsea location and ability to winch low in the water column allows extreme storm loadings to be avoided so that the device can continue to operate in rough sea conditions. The Waveswing is also designed to react to long ocean swell waves as well as short, wind-driven seas, for high energy capture.

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Neil Kermode, managing director, EMEC said, “It has been great to see the Waveswing deploy, survive and operate at our test site this year. We are looking forward to analysing the data from these trials in the coming weeks as we complete a performance assessment and help the AWS team show exactly what they have achieved with this imaginative project.”

Grey added that the team plans to focus on developing Waveswing with multi-absorber platforms to support utility-scale power. “We expect to develop platforms hosting up to twenty 500kW units with a potential capacity of 10MW per platform,” said Grey.

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The collaboration aims to accelerate tidal energy development in the country by studying sites and resource availability, as well as creating a feasible business case and pilot project.

The first site was visited in late September and the corresponding resource assessment campaign will be organised before the end of 2022.

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Ahsin Sidqi, Indonesia Power president director said in a statement: “Right now Indonesia Power has 100 year O&M competency in Hydro, hopefully with this collaboration with HydroWing as a technology provider, Indonesia Power obtains another new competency as a power generation company in the country, to become a trusted energy solution provider. Indonesia Power and HydroWing together will explore more potential development of tidal power plant in Indonesia.”

The HydroWing tidal solution includes a permanent gravity-based structure and a multi-rotor device designed to deliver redundancy and increase energy availability. The technology relies on a Tocardo turbine, which can be utilised in any source of flowing water.

Richard Parkinson, HydroWing managing director: “We view Indonesia as a prime market for our technology with an excellent resource and increasing demand for clean and reliable energy. This MOU with Indonesia Power is pivotal for us and our local partners to move rapidly towards significant commercial scale projects in the Archipelago”

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According to HydroWing, this deployment will be the first tidal energy power plant in Indonesia and is an important step towards securing cleaner baseload, which can be achieved when combined with solar energy and battery storage.

Renewable energy is becoming increasingly important to island nations such as the eastern Indonesian archipelago. Increased renewables will boost energy independence and speed up the transition from expensive diesel generators to cheaper forms of cleaner energy.

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The 100-tonne cable was installed using the Maersk Achiever vessel and will provide power and data connection from an on-land substation in Aguçadoura to the wave energy demonstration site 5.5km offshore.

Now connected to Portugal’s national grid, the site will initially accommodate the CorPower C4 Wave Energy Converter (WEC) which will later form part of a larger four-system array.

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CorPower Ocean marine operations manager Robert Argo said the cable lay process marks another significant milestone for the HiWave-5 Project, which aims to introduce certified and warrantied WEC products to the market.

“We started the installation process by positioning the Maersk Achiever in a safe water depth within the cable corridor, approximately one kilometre offshore,” said Argo. “A messenger line was passed from an onshore winch to the Maersk Achiever, and then connected to a cable pull-in head. As the cable was being deployed buoyancy was attached to assist with the cable float into shore. Once onshore the cable was pulled through a pre-installed cable conduit running under the beach and into the on-land substation, while the remaining cable was deployed using an onboard cable tensioner.

“During the lay operation, cable protection was added to provide additional mass where required for on-bottom stability. Various parameters were also monitored throughout including cable tension, cable departure angle and touch down monitoring. On completion a visual and positioning survey was carried out by a remotely operated vehicle.”

CorPower is now gearing up for the arrival of the C4 PTO (Power Take Off) system, which has completed a rigorous one-year dry test programme in Sweden. Once transported the PTO will be integrated with a composite hull, which was custom built at CorPower Ocean’s Portuguese base, in Viana do Castelo.

Having completed tests to verify power conductors and fibre communication cores, the CorPower C4 WEC will later be fused to the cable through a quick-connect interface located at the anchor-head. While providing power connection to feed electricity to shore through the 7.2kV cable it will also deliver high speed communication to the wave farm through fibre optic cores.

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The controller, almost two years in development and led by the maritime focussed design house BMT, is intended for use in distributing energy to islands and remote communities and increasing their use of renewable energy sources as a replacement for diesel power generation.

The solution is designed with commercial off-the-shelf components, along with a series of control parameters which effectively manage the energy optimisation of the resultant microgrid and balance the output from each energy source to support the required loads and users of the grid.

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With a modification of the control parameters, additional unlimited renewable energy sources can be integrated.

The testing is taking place at Sustainable Marine Energy’s substation in the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, with the primary renewable energy source provided by the company’s PLAT-I tidal energy device, a floating inshore tidal energy system designed for simple deployment in remote locations.

The PLAT-I was first installed for testing in 2018 and has been delivering power to the Nova Scotia grid since May.

“So far we’ve successfully tested prototypes, controlling and distributing river turbines, batteries, PV and generators to meet various load requirements,” says Martin Moody, BMT’s principal electrical specialist leading the testing.

“The fact that we’ve reached a full-scale testing opportunity is a success in and of itself and is a testament to the hard work and efforts of all the teams involved. But everyone is really excited to put this thing to the ultimate test.”

Wave energy could be key to a stable green grid of the future

The Ocean Energy Smart Grid Integration Project was launched by Canada’s Ocean Supercluster in December 2020 as part its Accelerated Ocean Solutions Program.

Other participants in the BMT-led project in addition to Sustainable Marine Energy are Rainhouse Manufacturing Canada, the University of Victoria and Turtle Island Innovations.

Canada’s Ocean Supercluster is an industry-led cluster to drive cross-sectoral collaboration and accelerate innovation in the country’s ocean economy.

The Accelerated Ocean Solutions Program was designed for smaller projects of up to two years in length.

With successful testing, the technology should move a step closer to commercialisation and the integration of ocean energies with others, particularly for islands with limited land space for other renewables.

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The study by University of Manchester researcher Pablo Ouro finds that the wake effects of the vertical axis turbines are much reduced compared with the conventional horizontal axis turbines, which would enable them to be sited closer together and provide more power generation from the same area.

The study considers different spacing configurations adjusted both streamwise and spanwise of 25 10MW turbines placed in five rows of turbines each. In all wind speed and direction scenarios the vertical axis turbines were found to outperform the horizontal axis turbines due to the faster wake recovery.

Moreover, the study found that the aspect ratio of the vertical axis turbine rotor is essential to increase the performance, with a taller and more slender (lower diameter/height, D/H) aspect giving the greater output.

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For example, with a turbine density of 1.39/km2 over a total area of 18.05km2 the annual energy generation of the vertical axis turbines was estimated between 1,151-1,242GWh (for D/H respectively 1.25 and 0.5) compared with 1,028GWh for horizontal axis turbines.

At a lower density of 0.36 turbines/km2 over an area of 69.3km2, the vertical axis turbine generations were estimated between 1,268-1,310GWh and the horizontal axis turbines at 1,103GWh.

Similar differences are reflected in the calculated efficiencies, i.e. the mean yield compared with the rated power, for the different combinations.

In the higher density configuration, the efficiencies were estimated at 53.3-57.5% for the vertical axis turbines compared with 47.6% for the horizontal axis turbines. In the lower density example, the respective figures were 58.7-60.6% versus 51.1%.

Notably, in one of the configurations, the power output for the vertical axis turbines reached almost 19MW/km2, while the highest for the horizontal axis turbines was 6.5MW/km2.

Jonas Boström, CTO of SeaTwirl, explains the findings in terms of the turbulence intensity, comparing a propeller in a stream of water with stirring the water with a spoon, with the turbulence created with the latter subsiding much faster.

For SeaTwirl, which has its technology under development with a demonstration due in Norway, the findings add to its value proposition.

“There are discussions in many countries to increase the power density demands for coming offshore wind farms to avoid building in eco conservation areas. This white paper shows that SeaTwirl can be placed in very dense wind farms without losing much efficiency due to wake effects,” says CEO Peter Laurits.

Development of the demonstration is advancing with the first test sections of the moulds for the blades having come off the line in early September and production of the blades due to start before yearend.

SeaTwirl also has entered into a cooperation with the University of Tokyo to adapt the technology to withstand the typhoons that are common there, typically during the summer months.

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