MORE WAYS TO MAKE NEW ENERGY WITH WAVE ENERGY

What everybody says: Wave energy is where wind energy was in the 1980s.

But it's not that easy. There's a lot more venture capital looking for the new new thing now than there was then. And the triple drivers (skyrocketing energy prices, peaking easy fossil fuel supplies and global climate change) have never before driven R&D and moved the market as they do now.

So wave energy is getting a lot better look than wind (and solar) got back then. The innovation seems endless. Most wind engineers have almost always been pretty sure there was no more efficient way to capture wind than with a propeller (though many have tried other ways). There seems to be quite a variety of ideas about how to capture the ocean's energy. How are they doing?

Michael Burrett, managing director, Embley Energy, on his Sperboy: “Extracting energy is no problem – we could start tomorrow…The challenge is to deploy it at a cost that will compete with oil and nuclear. We have to compete with nuclear power stations where the decommissioning costs are not included, so we have to get down to a few pence per kilowatt.”

Many experts believe ocean energy will someday supply 10% to 20% of world energy.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) has categorized the wave energy-capturing devices - but there are hybrids that defy categorization. (click to enlarge)

Case Study – marine energy; Is the tide turning for wave power?
Trevor Lawson, March 28, 2008 (Times of London)
and
SA innovator patents near-shore wave power generator
Margie Inggs, 28 March 2008 (Creamer Media’s Engineering News)

WHO
Spring Master (Doug Da Costa, managing member; sons Carl and Adrian Da Costa); Embley Energy Ltd. (Michael Burrett, managing director); Pelamis Wave Power Ltd.(Max Carcas, business development director)

Sperboy - looking for financing in London. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
Embley Energy’s Sperboy is looking for funding to get it from proof of concept to installation; Spring Master’s wave device is moving from a 1:50 scale test, in which it successfully proved itself, to a 1:10 scale test; Pelamis is about to be deployed and start earning its keep.

WHEN
- Sperboy’s first proof of concept goes back to the 1990s. It is still struggling for a commercial foothold and profitability.
- Da Costa has held discussions with the S. African utility giant Eskom but does not expect the complete infrastructure for his device to be built in less than 5 years.
- Thanks to funding from Scottish Power Renewables, Babcock & Brown and E.On, Pelamis Wave Power is through the so-called funding “Valley of Death” (from the proof of concept to installation and income) and will soon show a profit.

The Da Costa device - testing in S. Africa (click to enlarge)

WHERE
- Da Costa is based in Durban, South Africa and his system will eventually be deployed off energy-hungry South Africa’s wave-rich coasts.
- Sperboy is in London, looking for a deal.
- Pelamis will soon be deployed off Portugal’s coast, off Scotland’s Orkney Islands and off Britain’s Cornish coast.

WHY
- Da Costa’s device, 30 m wide and 110 m long, houses all hydraulic systems, electrical generators and switchgear in a pair of 3.5 meter diameter sealed pontoons, protecting them from harsh ocean environment. Pivoting torque tubes float between the pontoons and the motion of the waves moves the shafts, which operate actuator arms that drive hydraulic cylinders pumping oil into hydraulic motors that drive electric generators.
- The device is expected to have a 1 to 1.5 megawatt capacity. It will be moored at a 20-meter to 30-meter depth and connected to shore via cables that transmit the generated power.
- The device can simultaneously desalinate sea water and pump the salt back into the ocean. 25-million liters of seawater/day could be pumped into a desalination plant, converting about a third of this into fresh water.
- If 10% of S.Africa's 2 800-kilometer coast was used to generate wave power, it could generate 8,400 megawatts of electricity, the equivalent of three coal plants. S. Africa’s utility, Eskom, currently uses 4,200 megawatts.
- Sperboy is a concrete, vertical pipe. It bobs on the water’s surface. As the wave moves the pipe up and down, air going up and down inside the pipe drives a turbine that drives a coupled generator, creating electricity.
- Sperboy has few moving parts and therefore requires very little maintenance.
- A £150,000 applied research grant from the Carbon Trust and funding from nPower is helping Sperboy’s development but £1 million more to get it to the next level. Presently the company is being financed by 23 investors, mostly friends and family.
- The pelamis is a 140 metre-long chain of red cylinders, linked by hinged joints. The waves move the sections of the chain driving hydraulic generators that create an estimated 750 kilowatts of electricity.

Pelamis - ready to deploy in several seas. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Da Costa, on his device: "We were able to take some measurements of linear deflections of the torque tubes against eachwave size, but the scale was too small to conduct meaningful tests…We are very grateful to the CSIR [Council for Scientific and Industrial Research] for using its research funding to conduct the tests and are delighted that it has now installed a bigger wave generator facility tank that will enable us to test a 1:10 scale model. We have applied to the Indusrial Development Corporation and the Innovation Fund for further development funding, and both have informed us that they will give us an answer this month…If we can test the 1:10 scale and it is successful, we will be able to bring on board a commercial partner to inject funds into the project."
- Carcas, Pelamis: “The thing that got us going was the Scottish Renewables Order No3 which was a clear policy signal that there would be support for wave energy. Without that, we wouldn’t have progressed. There was funding for the technology push but what had been lacking, until recently, was the market pull in the form of a Government policy that supports wave power.”