Fred. Olsen informed on Friday that its Lifesaver wave energy converter (WEC), deployed at Navy’s Kaneohe Bay Wave Energy Test Site (WETS) in Hawaii, had been continuously exporting power for six months.
“This is superior to most existing renewable energy systems to date and illustrates the reliability of the Fred. Olsen wave energy technology,” the company stated.
The device marked the six-month power export following a repair in July 2016, when a winch on power take-off (PTO) unit number 2 was reconnected and production re-initiated after two months of pause with all three PTOs in operation.
At the beginning of August, there was also a failure on the PTO2 winch line, and a fault on the coolant pump on PTO3 emerged a month later. However, these issues did not interrupt the power production of the Lifesaver and everything was up and running by mid-October, with divers carrying out repairs during weather windows.
Fred. Olsen’s wave energy device installation at the WETS A-moorings was completed on March 25, 2016, and production started after the system was commissioned the next day.
According to the project website, the demonstration is currently funded through March 2017.
Tidal Energy Today Staff