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Tidal power or tidal energy is harnessed by converting energy from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity using various methods.
Wave power is the capture of energy of wind waves to do useful work – for example, electricity generation, desalination, or pumping water. A machine that exploits wave power is a wave energy converter (WEC).
Wave Dragon is a concept wave energy converter of the overtopping type, developed by the Danish company Wave Dragon Aps. Incoming waves flow up a ramp into a reservoir, the water the drains back to sea level though a hydro-electric turbine, generating electricity. "Reflector arms" are used to focus incoming waves, to channel the waves towards the ramp, increasing the energy captured.
Iberdrola, S.A. is a Spanish multinational electric utility company based in Bilbao, Spain. It has around 40,000 employees and serves around 30 million customers.
The Pelamis Wave Energy Converter was a technology that used the motion of ocean surface waves to create electricity. The machine was made up of connected sections which flex and bend as waves pass; it is this motion which is used to generate electricity.
The production of renewable energy in Scotland is a topic that came to the fore in technical, economic, and political terms during the opening years of the 21st century. The natural resource base for renewable energy is high by European, and even global standards, with the most important potential sources being wind, wave, and tide. Renewables generate almost all of Scotland's electricity, mostly from the country's wind power.
For solar power, South Asia has the ideal combination of both high solar insolation and a high density of potential customers.
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.
The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) Ltd. is a UKAS accredited test and research centre focused on wave and tidal power development, based in the Orkney Islands off the mainland of Scotland. The centre provides developers with the opportunity to test full-scale grid-connected prototype devices in wave and tidal conditions, at pre-consented test sites. EMEC also has sites for testing smaller-scale prototypes in more sheltered conditions.
A floating wind turbine is an offshore wind turbine mounted on a floating structure that allows the turbine to generate electricity in water depths where fixed-foundation turbines are not feasible. Floating wind farms have the potential to significantly increase the sea area available for offshore wind farms, especially in countries with limited shallow waters, such as Spain, Portugal, Japan, France and the United States' West Coast. Locating wind farms further offshore can also reduce visual pollution, provide better accommodation for fishing and shipping lanes, and reach stronger and more consistent winds.
Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) is a U.S. publicly owned renewable energy company, providing electric power and communications solutions, services and related for remote offshore applications. The company's PowerBuoy wave energy conversion technology is theoretically scalable to hundreds of megawatts and the generated energy from wave power can be supplied to the grid via submarine cables. Several projects were undertaken around the world, but the economic viability of the theoretical concept has been problematic.
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.
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.
Oscillating water columns (OWCs) are a type of wave energy converter that harness energy from the oscillation of the seawater inside a chamber or hollow caused by the action of waves. OWCs have shown promise as a renewable energy source with low environmental impact. Because of this, multiple companies have been working to design increasingly efficient OWC models. OWC are devices with a semi-submerged chamber or hollow open to the sea below, keeping a trapped air pocket above a water column. Waves force the column to act like a piston, moving up and down, forcing the air out of the chamber and back into it. This continuous movement forces a bidirectional stream of high-velocity air, which is channeled through a power take-off (PTO). The PTO system converts the airflow into energy. In models that convert airflow to electricity, the PTO system consists of a bidirectional turbine. This means that the turbine always spins the same direction regardless of the direction of airflow, allowing for energy to be continuously generated. Both the collecting chamber and PTO systems will be explained further under "Basic OWC Components."
Waves4Power is a Swedish-based developer of buoy-based Offshore Wave Energy Converter (OWEC) systems. Ongoing research and development is done in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology. A partnership with Dutch engineering specialist BnD-Engineering in 2021 aimed to commercialize and deploy the system on a global scale.
Located on the east side of Gibraltar, on a former World War II ammunition jetty, the Gibraltar Wave Farm is the first commercial, grid-connected wave energy power station in all of Europe. The project utilizes the devices of Eco Wave Power Ltd, an Israel-based wave energy company. The wave farm was initially launched with an estimated peak capacity of 100 kW in April 2016 and plans for expansion to 5 MW within the next years. The project is operating through a 25-year PPA between Eco Wave Power, the Government of Gibraltar, and the Gibraltar Electricity Authority. Upon completion, it is expected generate 15% of the total electricity consumption of Gibraltar. The project is funded, in part, by the 2014-2020 European Regional Development Fund, in order to put the country in line with the EU's renewable energy goal: 20% energy generated from renewable power by 2020. The project is also funded by private investment groups. As of February 2018, the Gibraltar Wave Farm accrued 15,000 grid connected hours, a new world record for wave energy plant.
The Ocean Grazer is a conceptual energy collection platform, projected to house several renewable energy generation modules, including wave energy, solar energy and wind energy. The development of the Ocean Grazer platform has been carried out by the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, since 2014, and now by a spin-out company Ocean Grazer BV.
The Aguçadoura test site is an offshore location in the north of Portugal where grid connected offshore renewable energy devices have been tested, for research and project demonstration. It is about 5 km (3 miles) off the coast of Aguçadoura, Póvoa de Varzim, about 35 km NNE of central Porto.
References
- 1 2 Visser, Anne (2012-08-20). "SDE Sells USD 1.2 Million Wave Power Plants to China". Offshore Wind. Retrieved 2024-09-07.
- ↑ Wolfson, Rebecca (2007-04-18). "Catching a wave". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2024-09-07.
- ↑ Ser, Sam. "Making Waves," Jerusalem Post, retrieved April 18, 2008.
- ↑ "SDE has Finalized the Construction of the First Sea Wave Power Plant in Jaffa Port, Israel" (Press release).
- ↑ Visser, Anne (2012-09-25). "SDE to Power India with Wave Energy". Offshore Wind. Retrieved 2024-09-07.
- ↑ "SDE to Build Sea Wave Energy Plants in Ecuador". Offshore Energy. 2012-06-18. Retrieved 2024-09-07.
- ↑ Visser, Anne (2014-11-20). "WERPO Continues Wave Energy Development in China". Offshore Wind. Retrieved 2024-09-07.
- ↑ "Israelis snap up Blackbird's wave". ReNEWS.biz. 3 August 2016. Retrieved 2024-09-07.
