AWS Ocean Energy A company from Scotland, AWS Energy, has announced the successful completion of the first stage of testing an existing prototype of an offshore power plant that uses wave energy.
The installation was named "Waveswing" and worked for six months at the landfill of the European Marine Energy Center in the Atlantic Ocean near the Orkney Islands. At the same time, the average performance of the system turned out to be 20% better than the calculated ones.
The Waveswing power plant consists of two floats, the lower one is anchored, the second one can oscillate relative to it in a vertical plane. This happens under the influence of the weight of the incoming waves, while air pressure is created inside the float in special pistons, which then returns the upper part of the system to its original position. A simple hydraulic motor converts translational motion into rotational motion and spins the generator.
AWS Ocean Energy The height of the power plant is 7 m, the diameter is 4 m, and the weight reaches 50 tons for a standard 15 kW module.
During tests at the oceanic test site, the installation generated an average of 10 kW in moderate waves, but could produce up to 80 kW at peak loads. It is reported that 12 hours is enough for the installation of such a power plant, it practically does not require maintenance, since the seawater does not affect the mechanisms inside. Waveswing can survive a storm up to 10 points. According to the concept, Waveswing installations can be combined into multi-section structures with a capacity of up to 0.5 MW. The energy of waves, unlike the energy of tides, can be collected almost anywhere in the World Ocean, all day long. Even in calm – small movements of huge masses of water in any case are an almost inexhaustible source of energy. The difficulty so far is only the assessment of the commercial potential of such power plants, since Waveswing is still a prototype.
Alexander Martynenko
