Ideas on producing cleaner and cheaper wave energy
The Underwater Kites and Wing Waves might sound like obscure bands nabbing rave reviews over at Pitchfork, but all hip indie techies know these have nothing to do with fickle music scenes and more to do with generating energy from the ebb and flow of ocean waves.
Harnessing wave energy may be a packed genre (crowded with chillwavers and new wavers), but the non-musical super group composed of researchers from Boston University and the Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing Innovation think you might dig their sound ideas on producing cleaner and cheaper wave energy.
They want to harness energy from waves using a fleet of ships. The fleet would replace expensive transmission cables currently used to transfer electricity from offshore power generators to the mainland could ultimately be done away with. Typically, these cables fetch a salty price — often more than $500,000 for about .62 miles.
Accomplishing this would be the fleet’s ships, which are 164-foot long. Attached to the ship’s sides are pivoting ‘arms’ that reach over the water. At the end of each ‘arm’ is a palm-like buoy that rests upon the surface of the water.
As waves cause the buoys to bob up and down, the arms pivot back and forth and, because they’re connected to a generator, can produce up to one megawatt of electrical power. That energy would be stored in on-board batteries and, once fully charged, returned to the mainland to be distributed throught the electrical grid.
Researchers expect the batteries to have a capacity of 20 Megawatt hours, so for a full charge, ships would have to remain at sea for at least 20 hours.
The project could potentially produce electricity at $0.15 per kilowatt hour — far cheaper than the cost of current wave technology, which falls anywhere from $0.30 to $0.65 per kilowatt hour.
The research team presented their concept in June at the Clean Technology Conference and Expo in Boston.
Source: Discovery News