Antinuclear

New design to make wave energy commercially attractive

Researchers making waves in bid to harness renewable energy, ABC News 10 Nov 14 By Damian McIntyre A team of researchers in Tasmania is testing equipment designed to capture an endless supply of clean energy generated by waves.

The Australian Maritime College in Launceston and a West Australian company have joined forces to test the commercial viability of the wave energy converter.

The director of Bombora Wave Power, Shawn Ryan, was optimistic the design would eventually lead to a commercial venture.”We think we’ve solved the issues of the predecessors that have gone before us,” he said. “The key criteria we looked at was survivability, so you’ve got to survive those large storm events that have highly energetic sea states and cost of electricity is the dominant consideration.

“It’s seabed mounted so that we can potentially survive those larger storm events that others have had difficulty trying to get through.

“With a number of different design features, we think that we’ve cracked the kernel.” here are several trials underway in Australia but so far there are no large scale operations.

The company believes the market for wave power will be substantial. “There could be up to 500 gigawatts of wave energy installed by 2050,” Mr Ryan said………http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-11/researchers-making-waves-in-bid-harness-renewable-energy/5883226

November 12, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | energy, Tasmania