Danish company Wavepiston has released a video showing the recently completed installation of the upgraded energy collectors on its prototype wave energy device deployed in the North Sea.
The device, comprised of a steel wire stretched between two anchored buoy, is undergoing long-term trials at the DanWEC test site , at Hanstholm.
The prototype has been improved with the larger plates on the device’s energy collectors, installed earlier in December, to continue trials over the first half of 2019, according to Wavepiston.
The Wavepiston system is made up of a simple string consisting of a steel wire rope and a flexible pipe.
On the string, energy collectors are mounted, each consisting of two pumps and a plate. The purpose of the energy collectors is to convert the surge motion of the waves to pressurized water.
The device itself works when waves roll along the wire moving the plates back and forth. The moving plates pump seawater into pipe which leads it to onshore turbine station which converts pressurized water to electricity.