Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire: Wave power

Showing posts with label Wave power. Show all posts

Friday, October 22, 2010

Tidal Power: The Next Wave? By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

Over the next few years, we can expect to see huge advances in our ability to harness power from the ocean’s waves and tides, a new report from IHS Emerging Energy Research, a Cambridge, Mass., consulting firm, predicts.

Getty Images A tidal energy turbine developed by Atlantis Resources.

Until recently, that sector has had limited popularity and mixed success, even as the number of installations generating power from other renewable resources like the wind, sun and biomass has grown rapidly.
“The global ocean energy sector is at a turning point,” the company’s report says. More than 45 wave and tidal prototypes are expected to be ocean-tested in 2010 and 2011. Only nine were tested in 2009.
More important, perhaps, while previous test projects tended to be operated by small, boutique firms, the giants of hydropower, which have decades of experience drawing power from rivers, are now getting into the ocean business. More at:

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/tidal-power-the-next-wave/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Wave Power Delivers Electricity to US Grid For First Time by Matthew McDermot

Science & Technology (alternative energy)

photo: Ocean Power Technologies
While wave power often seems like the poor cousin of the renewable energy world, and frankly doesn't have the practical potential of wind or solar power, tapping the power of the sea does have its place and this next one is worth a bit of hand clapping: One of Ocean Power Technologies' PowerBuoys can claim to be the first wave power device to deliver electricity to the US grid.
As Renewable Energy World reports:

OPT's PB40 PowerBuoy was hooked up to the grid at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii as part of the firm's program with the US Navy to test wave energy technology. The connection demonstrates the device's ability to produce utility-grade renewable energy that can be transmitted to the grid according to international and national standards, says the firm.

The PowerBuoy was deployed three-quarters of a mile off the coast of Oahu last year and has produced power for more than 4,400 hours of operation. As for environmental impact, independent evaluation has found the PowerBuoy to have no significant impact. All good news, if a small step forward.
power buoy size comparison chart

Comparison of various sized PowerBuoys next to a wind turbine via OPT.
If you're unfamiliar with how the OPT's PowerBuoy's work, this passage from 2008 here on TreeHugger will fill in some of the knowledge gap:

While most tidal power uses a underwater mounted turbine of some sort the Power Buoy relies instead on the rising and falling of the waves to generate power. Power is transmitted to the shore via underwater cable. OPT says that the a 10 MW power station using this technology would occupy 12.5 hectares of ocean. Theoretically the technology is scalable to 100 MW power stations, according to OPT's website.