The Concept of a New Wave Energy Converter - the CECO

Abstract

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The renewable energy technologies produced 20% of EU’s electricity consumption in 2010. The share of renewables for electricity generation is expected to increase to about 40% in 2020 to meet the EU target of 20% overall energy consumption from renewables, and it should further increase to 66% in 2030 and 100% in 2050, according to the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC, 2010). A wide variety of wave energy conversion technologies are currently being developed. A new wave energy converter (WEC) - CECO, aims at converting in electricity both the kinetic and the potential wave energy, and is composed of a central element and two lateral movable modules (LMM), which move, upward and downward, under the action of incident waves, Figure 1. The proof of concept of this patented WEC was carried out at the Hydraulics Laboratory of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, on a geometrical scale of 1:20. The paper presents some results of those tests and analyses the CECO response for different wave conditions and modes of operation (power take-off damping level and WEC inclination). Two different techniques were used to evaluate the power absorbed. The analysis is based on the measured motion, velocity and acceleration time series, the mean absorbed power and corresponding relative capture widths. The potential of this new concept was confirmed, as relative capture widths of up to 30% were obtained. In addition, these results are expected to improve after optimizing some components of this WEC. Figure 1. Representation of CECO (a) and its mode of operation: (b) upward motion - the wave crest passes by the LMM; (c) downward motion - the wave trough passes by LMM.

Keywords

• Renewable Energy
• Physical modeling
• relative capture width
• kinetic energy
• absorbed power