Going green is an increasingly hot trend nowadays with not only the growing risk of global warming, but also the cost of oil. When I think of renewable "green" energy, like the most of us, its likely limited to the more well known sources such as solar, wind and hydro power (geothermal if you want to delve deeper). One source that has seemingly escaped the main stream however, is wave power. That is what the Pelamis Wave Power Limited, the worlds first commercial wave power project, seeks to harness.
Three miles off the coast of Agucadoura in Portugal, three Pelamis Wave Energy Converters (PWEC) have recently been inaugurated. Each machine is a semi-submerged structure composed of cylindrical sections linked by hinged joints. Current converters are 140m long and 3.5m in diameter, each is rated at 750kW.
Phase two of the $13 million project seeks to install twenty five machines, this would bring the capacity up to 21 MW. Once the project is completed, it is expected to displace more than 60,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year, all the while powering more than 15,000 Portuguese homes. Due to Portugal's geographical location, Portugal's State Secretariat for Industry and Innovation have predicted wave power to account up to thirty percent of the country's gross domestic product by 2050.
Large wave farms could yield as much as three times the energy production of wind turbines of the same cost. This has led to interest from other countries. Scottish Executive Enterprise Minister Nicol Stephen announced that money has already been set aside for the installation of PWECs at the European Marine Energy Center in Orkney. According to Friends of the Earth chief executive Duncan McLaren, wave and tidal power could supply a fifth of the U.K.'s energy needs.
http://www.pelamiswave.com/
3 comments:
It is amazing how waves, a resource that would not normally be considered as an alternate energy source, are able to be used to provide large sums of electricity that surpass that of wind turbines for the same cost. What is also so unique about this device is its ability to conform to the different types of waves the wave converter would experience. Also how all the PWECs are connected to one central "wave hub" underwater to collect the total energy produced and disperse it to the necessary locations. These types of innovations will irradicate the conflict from foreign oil and provide different resources to produce energy at less expense for the consumer.
This is going to be great for the portuguese economy. A source of energy that is much better economically and also for the environment. A source of renewable energy that is powered by the ocean. This wave power works by having three jointed compartments that rise and fall as waves pass along it. The movement of the joints drives hydraulic rams which generate energy.
Its crazy to think that our technology has surpassed the idea of solar, wind and hydro power and have developed a new source of energy, "wave energy." I also agree that the Portuguese economy will benefit from this alternative source of energy. It is the world’s first commercial scale machine to generate electricity into the grid from offshore wave energy and the first to be used in commercial wave farm project.
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