Ships To Generate Electricity From Waves In Ocean

Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing Innovation recently #-Link-Snipped-# how smart Augmented Reality can help engineers and on-site technicians connect to fix machine problems. The engineers at Fraunhofer have now proposed a new design which can be mounted on the ships enabling them generate electricity from the waves in ocean and then come back to the shore and feed the electric energy to the grid. If realized, this technique would be a big advancement in the renewable energy harvesting. The tidal power has lot of potential, but it's not been fully tapped yet.

#-Link-Snipped-#
Prototype Showing Buoys Mounted On Ship | Image Credit: Fraunhofer

The conventional wave power generation systems are typically located in the sea. This makes it mandatory for the designers to design these systems to withstand power storms. Also, these systems require underwater cables to transfer the electricity from the plant to the distribution centers. These cables are very costly and their installation adds to the overall cost of power station. One more restriction is in deciding the location of the power station - as they can't be located at a place where ships have possibility to collide with them. The system proposed by Faunhofer eliminates all these drawbacks.

The new system would comprise of buoys mounted on either side of a ship, about 50 meters long. Once the ship is in the ocean, the waves would bob up & down the buoys. The pivots would help in converting this mechanical energy into electric energy and store them in onboard battery system. The ships would stay in the ocean until the batteries are fully charged and then come back to the shore at the peak load times (afternoons) to feed the electric energy stored in batteries to the grid.  It's estimated that the system would be capable of 20 megawatt-hours of energy.

Via: #-Link-Snipped-#