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Riding the wave of renewable energy

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As the world begins its transition to 100 per cent renewable energy, Tasmania is ideally positioned to harness the power of one of its most abundant natural assets: the ocean.

Australian developer Wave Swell Energy is working to unlock the potential of this clean, green energy source through a device designed to extract energy from ocean waves and convert it into electricity.

Following extensive research and development at the Australian Maritime College’s model test basin facility, the company has installed a full-scale prototype of its wave energy converter, UniWave, 100 metres offshore from King Island.

King Island is in Bass Strait, about 80km off the north-western coast of Tasmania. The island is a remote community and not connected to a mainland electricity supply.

Chief Executive Officer of Wave Swell Energy, Paul Geason said it is the perfect location to test the multi-million-dollar unit.

Built and tested at the Australian Maritime College at the University of Tasmania in Launceston, the unit has been an incredible success due to its unique design.

“Our primary objective was to generate electricity from the waves of the Southern Ocean that have been captured in the unit and we achieved that in 12 months, we've achieved the objectives we set out to achieve,"

"A significant achievement is the electricity generated has been of such high quality it’s been accepted by Hydro Tasmania for the grid on King Island." Mr Geason said.

Mr Geason said under the right wave conditions the UniWave200 can generate enough energy to power 200 homes on the island.

"The conversion rates that we've been able to achieve in terms of the amount of electricity we are able to extract from the wave energy that comes into the unit is 48 per cent, so 48 per cent of the energy that comes in, in the wave, is then exported onto the grid on King Island.

"That rate is very high and very encouraging and in fact is higher than other renewable energy technologies."

Mr Geason said there is far more energy in the waves of Tasmania than it currently uses or is ever likely to use.

“Tasmania has the ability to be a leader in renewable energy production and therefore hydrogen production.”

King Island was already being used by Hydro Tasmania as a testbed for integrating wind and solar energy into a remote island grid. Now, with wave energy added to the mix, it has become the first island grid in the world to generate electricity from three renewable sources.

The Australian Maritime College's wave energy converter, UniWave, offshore from King Island in the Bass Strait.

How does it work?

The UniWave technology is based on the concept of an oscillating water column (OWC) – an artificial blowhole with a chamber that is open underneath the waterline.

As waves pass through, the water rises and falls inside, forcing the air to pass by a turbine at the top of the chamber. This turbine generates electricity which is then fed back into the grid for community consumption.

Mr Geason said previous versions of OWCs were bi-directional, meaning the trapped air pushed the turbine down on the way in and up on the way out. Their current design is uni-directional, with the air spinning the turbine on the downstroke alone.

“It is a real breakthrough, we believe, in oscillating water column and the broader wave energy technology space. It’s ultimately a more efficient, higher performing technology but simpler and cheaper,” he said.

“We’d like to think that this technology will ultimately become one that provides the world with a meaningful percentage of its electricity needs. How much that will be, time will tell, but we certainly believe that it has the potential to be among the lowest cost forms of renewable energy.”

Testing for performance and survivability

Associate Professor Gregor Macfarlane leads a team of technical and research staff at the Australian Maritime College’s (AMC) hydrodynamic test facilities.

The model test basin consists of a 35-metre pool, a 16-paddle wave-maker and a wind generator, both controlled by computer to produce a range of different waves and sea states.

A scale model of Wave Swell Energy’s UniWave device was built and put through more than 1,000 test runs in the facility to gather data on two crucial areas.

The first was the performance of the device within typical, day-to-day conditions, allowing the team to quantify the amount of power generated and its efficiency.

The second aspect was to gauge how well the device would survive storm conditions, and what level of damage could potentially occur. This allowed for accurate load calculations, which fed into the engineering process to ensure it was built strong enough for the site conditions.

“The beauty of a controlled environment like our test basin is that we can break things into small, bite-sized chunks,” Associate Professor Macfarlane explained.

“We start with simple waves that are all of the same size, same length, and then analyse what happens there. And then you can expand that program out to look at other aspects – longer waves, higher waves, much more complex wave systems.

“Being able to break it down into that systematic manner means that we can easily understand what’s happening in complex, real-world scenarios.”

Associate Professor Macfarlane has been working in the field of maritime engineering for 30 years and specialising in marine renewables for the past 20 years. It was this combination of expertise and world-class testing facilities that drew Wave Swell Energy to collaborate with AMC.

Firing up the technology of the future

Following successful completion of the commissioning stage, AMC have collected and analysed full scale data over the past 12 months to quantify the unit’s performance and ultimately showcase its potential to the world.

Mr Geason said the Australian market is obviously the first to pursue.

"We have some of the best waves in the world here in Australia, waves that are well located to grid access, and to electricity demand and with so many of us living on the coastline it makes perfect sense."

For Wave Swell Energy, the next step will be refining the UniWave technology even further with the aim of scaling up production commercially.

The data from the King Island project will be used as part of the next phase of the technology, which is a technology enhancement project called Project Bluefire.

Bluefire is a jellyfish which are the most energy efficient creatures in the ocean, and this project is all about enhancing the technology and refining it into an even better, fully commercial product.