Energy

Blowhole wave energy generator exceeds expectations in 12-month test

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The UniWave 200 has been making reliable, clean energy for Australia's King Island for a year now, delivering better performance than expected
Wave Swell Energy
The UniWave 200 has been making reliable, clean energy for Australia's King Island for a year now, delivering better performance than expected
Wave Swell Energy
Can easily be integrated into breakwater developments
Wave Swell Energy
The UniWave can turn erosion protection projects into clean power sources
Wave Swell Energy
The UniWave 200 in place off King Island, Tasmania
Wave Swell Energy
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Wave Swell Energy's remarkable UniWave 200 is a sea platform that uses an artificial blowhole formation to create air pressure changes that drive a turbine and feed energy back to shore. After a year of testing, the company reports excellent results.

As we've discussed before, the UniWave system is a floatable device that can be towed to any coastal location and connected to the local energy grid. It's designed so that wave swells force water into a specially designed concrete chamber, pressurizing the air in the chamber and forcing it through an outlet valve. Then as the water recedes, it generates a powerful vacuum, which sucks air in through a turbine at the top and generates electricity that's fed into the grid via a cable.

As a result, it draws energy from the entire column of water that enters its chamber, a fact the team says makes it more efficient than wave energy devices that only harvest energy from the surface or the sea floor.

The UniWave 200 in place off King Island, Tasmania
Wave Swell Energy

WSE's key innovation here is that one-way generation; other devices that harvest the same effect use bi-directional turbines, requiring the ability to reverse blade pitch or redirect the airflow. WSE says its design allows for far cheaper and simpler turbines, that should also last longer since they're not getting as much salt water splashed through them when a big wave hits. Indeed, all this device's moving parts are above the waterline, a fact that should help extend its service life as well as making it completely harmless to marine life.

Interestingly, the UniWave's design also makes it easy to incorporate into breakwaters and seawalls, where it can take a coastal erosion protection project and turn it into a clean energy source. You can see an animation showing how it works in the video below.

A 200-kW test platform was installed last year off King Island, facing the notoriously rough seas of Bass Strait, which separates the island state of Tasmania from the mainland of Australia. There, it's been contributing reliable clean energy to the island's microgrid around the clock for a full 12 months. The WSE team has made a few live tweaks to the design during operation, improving its performance beyond original expectations.

“We set out to prove that Wave Swell’s wave energy converter technology could supply electricity to a grid in a range of wave conditions, and we have done that,” said WSE CEO Paul Geason in a press release. "One key achievement has been to deliver real-world results in Tasmanian ocean conditions to complement the AMC test modeling. In some instances, the performance of our technology in the ocean has exceeded expectations due to the lessons we’ve learnt through the project, technological improvements and the refinements we have made over the course of the year."

"Our team is excited to have achieved a rate of conversion from wave power to electricity at an average of 45 to 50% in a wide range of wave conditions," he continues. "This is a vast improvement on past devices and shows that the moment has arrived for wave power to sit alongside wind, solar and energy storage as part of a modern energy mix."

We asked Geason over email how much energy the device generated during the trial. "It's important to stress that the demonstration at King Island was not about producing high volumes of electricity," he responds. "Rather, it was to prove the capabilities of our technology in a variety of wave conditions. The results have met and at times exceeded our expectations. As an example, when the unit is generating 40 kW of power in reasonable wave conditions, you could extrapolate the amount of energy to be in the order of 1MWh in a 24 hour period."

The UniWave can turn erosion protection projects into clean power sources
Wave Swell Energy

The King Island platform will remain in place at least until the end of 2022, and the company is now gearing up to go into production.

"Having proven our device can survive the toughest conditions the Southern Ocean and Bass Strait can throw at it, and deliver grid compliant electricity, our priority now shifts to commercializing the technology," said Gleason. "For Wave Swell this means ensuring the market embraces the WSE technology and units are deployed to deliver utility scale clean electricity to mainland grids around the world.”

Geason tells New Atlas that commercial deployments could vary in size. "The units can scale up from 200 kW," he writes. "Exact size will depend upon the attributes of the wave climate at any particular location. The sweet spot, as you put it, will be site dependent. We're currently engaged with a number of third parties that are seeking to deploy commercial units, and our efforts and resources are focused on further deployments and commercialization of our technology."

See the UniWave 200 test platform running in the video below.

Source: Wave Swell Energy

Editor's note: this piece has been updated on August 2, to include responses from our communications with WSE CEO Paul Gleason.

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10 comments
WONKY KLERKY
NOTED:

1: No guard over turbine in/outlet.
Ergo/ie. As well as being a passing seagull shredder, at the powers probable it'll be hazardous to maintenance crews.

+ + +

2: With note to 1: above -
No means immediately apparent to close off/isolate turbine from rising water column air pressure.
With the vid' views showing a view (?) panel immediately below turbine plinth . . . . .......
Bright ideas spot : Suggest:
Switchable pressure relief valves to head of panel
+
Operable horizontal louver valve to head of column - ie. At air inlet to turbine

pbethel
Two turbines, one in one out.
Must be a good reason why not but it isn't obvious.
Wonky's remarks are about simple things that may have been left out for clarity. Concept not minutiae
Aermaco
3. screened grill dome over bird shredder turbine, with a tube for backflow high water damper flap.
Treon Verdery
Vacuum turbines and propellers are new to me, but I think I did read about a , perhaps designed with a genetic algorithm that is an amazing 30% more energy efficient, if that can be accomplished with vacuum turbines then that is much more energy generated. Also it could use about 1/5th as much concrete if it were made with ferro cement, this also Makes it cheaper to build with smaller floats
Karmudjun
Loz - Awesome!
You have got to love proof of concept that exceeds expectations! Can't wait to see them off the shore of Cape Cod!
If all the issues get worked out, I'm all for these even if it makes sailing in to shore a little trickier!
Steve Althaus
Interesting concept. The presentation raises questions. What is the noise profile both in sound pressure level and frequency? Does the frequency increase and decrease as the turbine speed ramps up and ramps down? I am also curious about the installed cost per kWh. I am sure this varies from site to site, but I am curious about the variability of the output? I suppose by varying the distance to the shore perpendicular to wave fronts multiple turbines could be installed to level the output somewhat, but I am also curious about day to day, day to night, and seasonal variations. All these variations have implications for the amount and types of storage that might be needed to increase the robustness of the grid if these units comprise a major fraction of the energy. I really like the concept.
WONKY KLERKY
Thank you pbethel, but the devil is usually found in the detail.
+
On yours:
Perfectly valid as a set-up, (and mi thinks it has been proposed previously), but there is only so much energy in a water surge column . . . ......
ljaques
I like it! First, it works 24/365 for solid (if variable) base power production, which is something solar and wind can't promise. Second, they took the noisy parts out of the water so they won't bother all sealife. I just hope they're quiet enough in the air. +1, Steve Althaus
christopher
So.. is it 200kw or 40kw ? And what's the definition of "reasonable wave conditions" - is that the same as what the solar industry think of for reasonable light conditions (5 mins at the peak of the brightest day of the year...then add a few extra percent for good measure). When a simple question like "how much energy the device generated during the trial" gets a rambling response talking only about "this one one time, at band camp, it got upto 40kw", then playing around in excel to make that look like 1mwh... instead of answering the most basic question which they absolutely would have instantly known the answer too.... well... sad.

Nothing can compete with solar, simply because nobody will ever fun anything that's more risky, less efficient, and costs more - all of which this is. Heck - just the cost of the cable to move the power from the shore to the homes is already more than the cost of putting equivalent amounts of solar power on homes - and that's not even *starting* on the fact that the solar will last 20 years with zero maintenance, while this will struggle to last even 1 month without expensive fixes, and certainly not anywhere near even half of the solar life span... now add all that to the ugliness, environmental damage, and blatant lack of honesty/openness of the company involved and you've got a sure-fire bet this is the last you'll ever hear of these guys.
JoD
I made a suggestion some time ago that something like this should be incorporated into wind turbine columns. The means of collecting and distributing the electricity already exists there and, while the capacity of each may be limited, the number being erected would make it worthwhile.