Sea Power’s wave energy platform has tackled some extreme wave conditions caused by storms while continuing its operation off the west coast of Ireland.
Sea Power, an Irish based engineering company behind the device, informed its 1:5 scale SeaPower Platform demonstrated its survivability by facing the instantaneous wave heights of more than 4 meters during Barbara and Doris storms.
For an equivalent full-scale SeaPower Platform, this corresponds to surviving approximately 20.5 meters wave height, SeaPower said.
The device was deployed into the SmartBay test site in Galway Bay at the end of October 2016 for the first phase of testing.
Sea Power expects to remain testing at the site for a 12 month continuous period with the installation of the rotary power take-off (PTO), currently under development, mid-way in between the deployment duration.
Throughout the testing period in Galway Bay, a number of onboard parameters are being continuously measured including tension loads in the front mooring lines, bow panel pressures due to wave slapping and wave slamming events, multiaxis hinge load in both hinge pins, accelerations of each body, and mechanical power in the representative PTO system.
The onboard parameters being measured, directly inform future structural and mechanical design calculations for the optimization of full-scale platforms, according to Sea Power.
SeaPower device is an attenuator type of wave energy converter which operates parallel to the wave direction, capturing energy from the relative motion of the two arms in the device as the wave passes them.