The Darrieus wind turbine is a type of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) used to generate electricity from wind energy. The turbine consists of a number of curved aerofoil blades mounted on a rotating shaft or framework. The curvature of the blades allows the blade to be stressed only in tension at high rotating speeds. There are several closely related wind turbines that use straight blades. This design of the turbine was patented by Georges Jean Marie Darrieus, a French aeronautical engineer; filing for the patent was October 1, 1926. There are major difficulties in protecting the Darrieus turbine from extreme wind conditions and in making it self-starting.
Wave power is the capture of energy of wind waves to do useful work – for example, electricity generation, water desalination, or pumping water. A machine that exploits wave power is a wave energy converter (WEC).
The Gorlov helical turbine (GHT) is a water turbine evolved from the Darrieus turbine design by altering it to have helical blades/foils. Water turbines take kinetic energy and translate it into electricity. It was patented in a series of patents from September 19, 1995 to July 3, 2001 and won 2001 ASME Thomas A. Edison. GHT was invented by Alexander M. Gorlov, professor of Northeastern University.
Unconventional wind turbines are those that differ significantly from the most common types in use.
An OE Buoy or Ocean Energy Buoy is a wave power device that uses an Oscillating Water Column design. It was deployed in half-scale test mode in Spiddal near Galway in Ireland for over two years between 2007 and 2009. As of the 5th of March 2011 the model has been redeployed at the same site, primarily as a data collector for the EU funded Cores Project.
Oceanlinx was a company established in 1997 which specialised in the research and development of ocean-based renewable energy technology. The company's central technology was based on the Wave Energy Converter "WEC" which converts wave energy into electrical energy. Oceanlinx technology focused on the oscillating water column principle, and developed several prototype generators which were deployed and tested in Port Kembla, New South Wales. In 2014, Oceanlinx entered receivership and its technology, intellectual property, brand and trademark were sold to Wave Power Renewables Limited in Hong Kong. Wave Power Renewables Limited has continued to develop the technology, and Oceanlinx's founding director, Tom Denniss has further developed the technology since 2016 as a director of Wave Swell Energy.
The Wells turbine is a low-pressure air turbine that rotates continuously in one direction independent of the direction of the air flow. Its blades feature a symmetrical airfoil with its plane of symmetry in the plane of rotation and perpendicular to the air stream.
CETO is a wave-energy technology that converts kinetic energy from ocean swell into electrical power and directly desalinates freshwater through reverse osmosis. The technology was developed and tested onshore and offshore in Fremantle, Western Australia. In early 2015 a CETO 5 production installation was commissioned and connected to the grid. As of January 2016 all the electricity generated is being purchased to contribute towards the power requirements of HMAS Stirling naval base at Garden Island, Western Australia. Some of the energy will also be used directly to desalinate water.
Islay LIMPET was the world's first commercial wave power device and was connected to the United Kingdom's National Grid.
SeWave is a wave farm project in Nípanin, Faroe Islands. The project is developed by the joint venture of the Scottish wave energy developer Wavegen and the Faroe's power company SEV.
Wave power in Australia is being developed as the country has a long and largely deep-water coastline. It is one of several regions of the world where wave power projects are being considered. Australia has great potential for wave energy because strong Southern Ocean winds generate consistently large waves ideal for wave energy production. The main challenges are capital cost and withstanding damage from harsh ocean conditions.
Evopod is a unique tidal energy device being developed by a UK-based company Oceanflow Energy Ltd for generating electricity from tidal streams and ocean currents. It can operate in exposed deep water sites where severe wind and waves also make up the environment.
Marine energy or marine power refers to the energy carried by ocean waves, tides, salinity, and ocean temperature differences. The movement of water in the world's oceans creates a vast store of kinetic energy, or energy in motion. Some of this energy can be harnessed to generate electricity to power homes, transport and industries.
SDE Sea Wave is a type of renewable energy power plant technology utilizing sea wave energy for the production of electricity.
A tidal stream generator, often referred to as a tidal energy converter (TEC), is a machine that extracts energy from moving masses of water, in particular tides, although the term is often used in reference to machines designed to extract energy from the run of a river or tidal estuarine sites. Certain types of these machines function very much like underwater wind turbines and are thus often referred to as tidal turbines. They were first conceived in the 1970s during the oil crisis.
The Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant is a wave power plant constructed by Ente Vasco de la Energía (EVE), the Basque energy agency, in the bay of Mutriku in the Bay of Biscay. It is the world's first breakwater wave power plant with a multiple turbine arrangement. The plant has a capacity of 296 kW from 16 turbo generator sets. It was inaugurated on July 8, 2011.
PowerBuoy is a series of low-carbon emission marine power stations manufactured by Ocean Power Technologies (OPT), a renewable energy company located in New Jersey. PowerBuoys are most commonly used to provide power to offshore payloads generated through eco-friendly means. The PowerBuoy is designed to act as an Uninterruptible power supply. It stores energy in onboard batteries so that it can still provide continuous power through low generation periods.
MARMOK-A-5 is an offshore electrical power generator that uses wave energy to create electricity. This device is a spar buoy installed in the maritime testing site BiMEP, in the Bay of Biscay. It is the first grid-connected maritime generator in Spain, and one of the first in the world.
India has a long coastline of 7517 km marked along by numerous estuaries and gulfs which makes it attractive for the development of marine energy projects. India's wave power potential is around 40-60GW. However, compared to the developments in other renewable energy technologies, ocean energy technologies like wave and tidal are in their nascent stages of development in India.
