The OWEL Wave Energy Converter

Completed

Renewable Energy Sources(Ocean Energy)

Applied Research and Development

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

Not Cross-cutting

Professor J Kemp
Offshore Wave Energy Ltd

3

Carbon Trust

01 December 2003

30 November 2005

24 months

£160,000

South East

Professor J Kemp, Offshore Wave Energy Ltd

OWEL's aim is to develop and market a concept for a wave energy converter (WEC) that is being developed to meet the perceived limitations of other wave energy converter designs. The aim is to progress the OWEL WEC from proven design towards a developed and marketable product.

The WEC is designed to generate electricity without CO2 emissions and help the UK meet its Kyoto obligations to reduce carbon emissions, whilst being a potential source of power at a commercially attractive price. The project builds on the successful feasibility study of the WEC, supported by a DTI SMART Award. The initial study predicted that a full- scale WEC would produce commercially viable quantities of power from its robust yet simple construction technique. The next phase of the projectwill include further mathematical modelling and testing of the intermediate-scale model (20m in length approximately) to confirm the findings of the feasibility study, followed by the design of a full-scale prototype. Ancillary studies will also investigate the commercial viability of full-scale WECs including the identification of suitable mooring systems, power cable links and turbo generator equipment. Floating WEC units would be deployed in water deep enough to avoid loss of energy from seabed friction. The absence of moving parts in contact with the water will permit the construction of large, inexpensive, concrete units capable of capturing energy from long lengths of wave crest. A typical unit may be deployed off Britain's north west coast, where the mean energy per metre of wave crest is more than 50kW. In this area a WEC platform with an average output of 5MW, operating 20hrs a day, is predicted to generate 36,500MWh per year and save15,700 tonnes of CO2 /year/platform. The work programme includes: design, construction and testing of an intermediate-scale physical model; mathematical modelling of the WEC hydrodynamics/aerodynamics and analysis of the results leading to specification of the full scale WEC; study of the mooring systems, turbo generator and control systems and power cabling; prediction of the full-scale power output in relation to capital and operating cost and commercialisation strategy. To date, several electricity supply companies have shown significant interest in the fullscale prototype and are awaiting the results of the Development Stud

01/01/07