Design of a 50 GWh Wave Energy Plant

Abstract: Energy is one of the most important factors in the socioeconomic development of a country. In a developing country like Malaysia, the development of islands is mostly related to the availability of electric power. As an island surrounded by sea, power generated by wave energy source will become one of the most promising solutions for the electrification of island areas. But, the unpredictable nature of the wave energy source is the main drawback. This paper presents a novel stand-alone wave energy supply system modeling with maximum power tracking and an energy storage-based power management algorithm in MATLAB/Simulink environment. The main contributions of this research work are eliminating the intermittent power generation nature of wave energy and efficiently extract the maximum wave power. In the proposed stand-alone system, a DC–DC bidirectional buck-boost converter controller is used to maintain the constant dc-link voltage. It also accumulates the surplus wave power in the battery bank and...

Abstract: The progress in wave energy conversion in Europe during the past ten years is reviewed and current activities and initiatives in the wave energy sector at National and Union level are described. Other important activities worldwide are summarized. The technical and econ

Abstract: This paper reviews the present state of the art on self rectifying air turbines, which could be used for wave energy conversion. The overall performances of the turbines under irregular wave conditions, which typically occur in the sea, have been evaluated numerically and compared from the viewpoints of their starting and running characteristics. The types of turbine included in the paper are: (a) Wells turbine with guide vanes (WTGV); (b) turbine with self-pitch-controlled blades (TSCB); (c) biplane Wells turbine with guide vanes (BWGV); (d) impulse turbine with self-pitch-controlled guide vanes (ISGV); and (e) impulse turbine with fixed guide vanes (IFGV). As a result, under irregular wave conditions, it is found that the running and starting characteristics of impulse type turbines could be superior to those of the Wells turbine. Moreover, the authors have explained the mechanism of the hysteretic behavior of the Wells turbine and the necessity of links for improvement of the performance of the ISGV.

Abstract: Experimental results from near shore bottom standing OWC based wave energy plants in Japan and India have now been available for about a decade. Historically the weakest link in the conversion efficiency of OWC based wave energy plants built so far has been the bidirectional turbine. This is possibly because a single turbine has been required to deliver power when the plant is exposed to random incident wave excitation varying by a factor of 10. A new topology that uses twin unidirectional turbines (which features a high efficiency spanning a broad range) is proposed. Using the Indian Wave Energy plant as a case study, it is shown that the power output from such a module considerably exceeds existing optimal configurations including those based on a fixed guide vane impulse turbine, linked guide vane impulse turbine or a Well's turbine. A wave to wire efficiency of the order of 50% over the incident range is shown to be feasible in a credible manner by showing the output at all stages of the conversion process. A frequency domain technique is used to compute the OWC efficiency and a time domain approach used for the power module with the turbine pressure being the pivotal variable.

Abstract: Experimental investigations directed towards improving the performance of the impulse turbine with self-pitch-controlled guide vanes for wave power conversion are reported. The turbine presented and tested here has an upstream and a downstream guide vane row connected by link motions. The behavior of guide vanes in the reciprocating flows is shown in connection with the axial flow velocity. The results show that a high-efficiency impulse turbine can be developed by these of guide vanes connected by link motions. Furthermore, it is found that the running and starting characteristics of this turbine in the reciprocating flow can be estimated from the performance of the turbine with fixed nozzle and diffuser vanes in a unidirectional steady flow.