The ‘weather bomb’ hit Scotland last week, causing large waves of up to 12 m – the perfect environment for testing a device for harnessing wave energy.
Albatern, a Scotland based company, developed WaveNET – an offshore array-based wave energy converter that uses the motion of waves to generate electricity.
The floating structure of the WaveNET is flexible in all directions, and capable of capturing power from the ocean regardless of wave direction and array orientation.
WaveNET arrays are formed by interconnecting the unique SQUID generating units. Each SQUID unit comprises a hollow central riser tube connected to 3 buoyancy floats by linking arms. The connections between each of these components is made by 6 identical fully articulated pumping modules.
One of Albatern’s WaveNET SQUID units was under test at Kishorn Port in Wester Ross, where the winds whipped up large waves, and the company says the unit responded accordingly.
Check out the video to see SQUID producing electricity during the ‘weather bomb’.
Source/Image: Albatern