| 1. |
- Francisco, Francisco, 1985-, et al.
(författare)
-
Wave Power as Solution for Off-Grid Water Desalination Systems : Resource Characterization for Kilifi-Kenya
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Energies. - : MDPI. - 1996-1073. ; 11:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Freshwater scarcity is one of humanity's reoccurring problems that hamper socio-economic development in many regions across the globe. In coastal areas, seawater can be desalinated through reverse osmosis (RO) and transformed into freshwater for human use. Desalination requires large amounts of energy, mostly in the form of a reliable electricity supply, which in many cases is supplied by diesel generators. The objective of this work is to analyze the wave power resource availability in Kilifi-Kenya and evaluate the possible use of wave power converter (WEC) to power desalination plants. A particular focus is given use of WECs developed by Uppsala University (UU-WEC). The results here presented were achieved using reanalysis-wave data revealed that the local wave climate has an approximate annual mean of 7 kW/m and mode of 5 kW/m. Significant wave height and wave mean period are within 0.8-2 m and 7-8 s respectively, with a predominant wave mean direction from southeast. The seasonal cycle appeared to be the most relevant for energy conversion, having the highest difference of 6 kW/m, in which April is the lowest (3.8 kW/m) and August is the peak (10.5 kW/m). In such mild wave climates, the UU-WEC and similar devices can be suitable for ocean energy harvesting for water desalination systems. Technically, with a capacity factor of 30% and energy consumption of 3 kWh/m(3), a coastal community of about five thousand inhabitants can be provided of freshwater by only ten WECs with installed capacity of 20 kW.
|
|
| 2. |
- Göteman, Malin, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
-
Arrays of Point-Absorbing Wave Energy Converters in Short-Crested Irregular Waves
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Energies. - : MDPI AG. - 1996-1073. ; 11:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- For most wave energy technology concepts, large-scale electricity production and cost-efficiency require that the devices are installed together in parks. The hydrodynamical interactions between the devices will affect the total performance of the park, and the optimization of the park layout and other park design parameters is a topic of active research. Most studies have considered wave energy parks in long-crested, unidirectional waves. However, real ocean waves can be short-crested, with waves propagating simultaneously in several directions, and some studies have indicated that the wave energy park performance might change in short-crested waves. Here, theory for short-crested waves is integrated in an analytical multiple scattering method, and used to evaluate wave energy park performance in irregular, short-crested waves with different number of wave directions and directional spreading parameters. The results show that the energy absorption is comparable to the situation in long-crested waves, but that the power fluctuations are significantly lower.
|
|
| 3. |
- Göteman, Malin, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
-
Fast modeling of large wave energy farms using interaction distance cut-off
- 2015
-
Ingår i: Energies. - : MDPI AG. - 1996-1073. ; 8:12, s. 13741-13757
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In many wave energy concepts, power output in the MW range requires the simultaneous operation of many wave energy converters. In particular, this is true for small point-absorbers, where a wave energy farm may contain several hundred devices. The total performance of the farm is affected by the hydrodynamic interactions between the individual devices, and reliable tools that can model full farms are needed to study power output and find optimal design parameters. This paper presents a novel method to model the hydrodynamic interactions and power output of very large wave energy farms. The method is based on analytical multiple scattering theory and uses time series of irregular wave amplitudes to compute the instantaneous power of each device. An interaction distance cut-off is introduced to improve the computational cost with acceptable accuracy. As an application of the method, wave energy farms with over 100 devices are studied in the MW range using one month of wave data measured at an off-shore site.
|
|
| 4. |
- Li, Wei, et al.
(författare)
-
Statistical Analysis of Wave Climate Data Using Mixed Distributions and Extreme Wave Prediction
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Energies. - : MDPI AG. - 1996-1073. ; 9:6
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The investigation of various aspects of the wave climate at a wave energy test site is essential for the development of reliable and efficient wave energy conversion technology. This paper presents studies of the wave climate based on nine years of wave observations from the 2005-2013 period measured with a wave measurement buoy at the Lysekil wave energy test site located off the west coast of Sweden. A detailed analysis of the wave statistics is investigated to reveal the characteristics of the wave climate at this specific test site. The long-term extreme waves are estimated from applying the Peak over Threshold (POT) method on the measured wave data. The significant wave height and the maximum wave height at the test site for different return periods are also compared. In this study, a new approach using a mixed-distribution model is proposed to describe the long-term behavior of the significant wave height and it shows an impressive goodness of fit to wave data from the test site. The mixed-distribution model is also applied to measured wave data from four other sites and it provides an illustration of the general applicability of the proposed model. The methodologies used in this paper can be applied to general wave climate analysis of wave energy test sites to estimate extreme waves for the survivability assessment of wave energy converters and characterize the long wave climate to forecast the wave energy resource of the test sites and the energy production of the wave energy converters.
|
|
| 5. |
- Thomas, Simon, et al.
(författare)
-
Experimental and numerical collaborative latching control of wave energy converter arrays
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Energies. - : MDPI AG. - 1996-1073. ; 11:11
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A challenge while applying latching control on a wave energy converter (WEC) is to find a reliable and robust control strategy working in irregular waves and handling the non-ideal behavior of real WECs. In this paper, a robust and model-free collaborative learning approach for latchable WECs in an array is presented. A machine learning algorithm with a shallow artificial neural network (ANN) is used to find optimal latching times. The applied strategy is compared to a latching time that is linearly correlated with the mean wave period: It is remarkable that the ANN-based WEC achieved a similar power absorption as the WEC applying a linear latching time, by applying only two different latching times. The strategy was tested in a numerical simulation, where for some sea states it absorbed more than twice the power compared to the uncontrolled WEC and over 30% more power than a WEC with constant latching. In wave tank tests with a 1:10 physical scale model the advantage decreased to +3% compared to the best tested constant latching WEC, which is explained by the lower advantage of the latching strategy caused by the non-ideal latching of the physical power take-off model.
|
|
| 6. |
- Thomas, Simon, et al.
(författare)
-
Performance of a Direct-Driven Wave Energy Point Absorber with High Inertia Rotatory Power Take-off
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Energies. - : MDPI AG. - 1996-1073. ; 11:9
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An alternating rotatory generator using an eddy current break is developed as a physicalscale model of a direct-driven floating point absorber power take-off (PTO) for wave tank tests. It isshown that this design is a simple and cost-effective way to get an accurate linear damping PTO. Thedevice shows some beneficial characteristics, making it an interesting option for full scale devices:For similar weights the inertia can be significantly higher than for linear generators, allowing it tooperate with natural frequencies close to typical wave frequencies. The influence of the higher inertiaon the power absorption is tested using both a numerical simulation and physical wave tank tests.With the increased inertia the PTO is able to absorb more than double the energy of a comparabledirect-driven linear generator in some sea states. Moreover, the alternating rotatory generator allowsthe absorption characteristic to be tuned by changing the inertia and the generator damping.
|
|
| 7. |
- Wang, Liguo, et al.
(författare)
-
Coordinated Control of Wave Energy Converters Subject to Motion Constraints
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Energies. - MDPI : MDPI AG. - 1996-1073. ; 9:6
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper, a generic coordinated control method for wave energy converters is proposed, and the constraints on motion amplitudes and the hydrodynamic interaction between converters are considered. The objective of the control problem is to maximize the energy converted from ocean waves, and this is achieved by coordinating the power take-off (PTO) damping of each wave energy converter in the frequency domain in each sea state. In a case study, a wave energy farm consisting of four converters based on the concept developed by Uppsala University is studied. In the solution, motion constraints, including constraints on the amplitudes of displacement and velocity, are included. Twelve months of sea states, based on measured wave data at the Lysekil test site on the Swedish west coast, are used in the simulation to evaluate the performance of the wave energy farm using the new method. Results from the new coordinated control method and traditional control method are compared, indicating that the coordinated control of wave energy converters is an effective way to improve the energy production of wave energy farm in harmonic waves.
|
|
