Swedish wave energy company Novige has concluded the extensive tests on its scaled NoviOcean wave energy prototype in France, with the support of the MaRINET2 project.
The two-week test campaign took place at the Research Laboratory in Hydrodynamics, Energetics and Atmospheric Environment (LHEEA) in École Centrale de Nantes (ECN).
After successfully completing the wave tank tests, Novige verified that its full-scale NoviOcean unit, dubbed NO500 and rated at 500kW, is expected to reach its full capacity at waves with significant height of 3.5 meters and higher, confirming the previous third-party simulations.
In locations with medium wave energy flow, the average generated electricity can reach up to 250kW per unit, indicating a capacity factor of 50%, and yield of more than 2000MWh/year, Novige said.
According to the company, the similar capacity factor can be maintained for larger units up to 2MW rated capacity. Also, the control system is said to be able to operate in a very simple, effective, and precise way thanks to its non-resonant behaviour.
In addition, the new float design for the device proved to be an improvement over the previously simplified version by which balanced front and back mooring loads could be achieved.
Jan Skjoldhammer , founder and CEO of Novige, said: “We are humble to the fact that it looks like we have discovered a highly effective and cost-efficient way to solve a considerable part of the climate crisis, fast. We will offer low-priced production licences to shipyards and industrial actors world-wide, in order to improve the speed to reach our goal – saving the climate with profitable wave power”.
Novige’s NoviOcean device is a floating non-resonant point absorber wave energy converter which extracts energy from the vertical motion (heave) of the waves.
It is essentially comprised of two main subsystems – the ‘rectangular float’, and the ‘inverted hydro power plant PTO’.
After successful tank and offshore testing of the NoviOcean prototyp e, which resulted in the validation of all of the aspects for the device’s functionality and performance, Novige said it will apply the lessons learned to develop its first pre-commercial full-scale 500kW device, the NO500.
The rest of 2021 and 2022 will be devoted to the design of the first NO500 unit, followed by construction in 2023 and open-water deployment and testing in 2024, according to Novige.
Take a look at the NoviOcean prototype taking on the waves as part of the recent trials at ECN’s LHEEA.
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