[I wrote a research paper in high school in the 70’s about wave and tidal energy production, as well as OTEC, ocean thermal energy conversion. Wave energy looked liked the worst of the three back then. It probably still is.~charles]
The City, University of London academic will lead on the development of a new generation modelling suite, combining machine learning techniques, for the survivability of wave energy converters in marine environments
CITY UNIVERSITY LONDON
City, University of London Professor of Hydrodynamics, Professor Qingwei Ma, will be helping the UK achieve its net zero carbon emissions goal by developing cutting-edge new wave energy technologies.
Supported by a £1m research grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Professor Ma will develop the WavE-Suite, a new generation modelling suite for the survivability of wave energy converters in marine environments.
Professor Ma’s project will build on the UK’s leading role in marine wave energy to overcome challenges to devices that capture the energy generated by waves and convert it into a renewable source of electricity.
He says that there is a long history of research into wave energy converters (WECs), “but there are still many challenges to be overcome before they can become fully effective, reliable and economically viable”.
“One of the challenges is the lack of robust modelling tools to assess survivability of WECs under extreme marine environments that cause extreme loads and large responses. Such numerical modelling tools should have the capability of dealing with breaking waves and two-phase flow and accurately estimating the effect of viscosity in turbulent states. In the meantime, they must be fast enough so that engineers can simulate the cases within practical time-scales for design.”
Assisted by Dr Shiqiang Yan, the project will develop a novel numerical modelling suite by combining different models and by proposing new numerical approaches and machine learning techniques, which will be more accurate and require less computational effort. The modelling suite will be able to automatically go up to very complex simulations only when necessary, and down to simple simulations, depending on the conditions under which the WECs work.
The WavE-Suite project creates a new collaboration with leading academics from Imperial College, University of Edinburgh, University of Bath, Cardiff University, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and leading WEC developers, including Mocean in Scotland, CorPower Ocean in Sweden, Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion (GIEC) in China and BiMEP in Spain.
Professor Ma was granted the CH Kim Award by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE) in 2016. He is the first academic from a UK university, and the second from Europe, to have received the award. He also received the 2015 Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Learning and Teaching
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There are plenty of computer models out there for waves.
What is really needed are empirical measurements of wave speed and height as a function of time, tides, and wind speed where a wave-power generator is to be located, to determine the feasibility and design of an eventual project, and the power that can realistically be generated..
But as other commenters have noted, Miss Ma already got her million, so she’s happy.
I was a student at Lanchester Polytechnic (Coventry University) many years ago, I worked on development of a functioning wave energy system.
In short it worked OK, but politicians and politics killed off the project.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4684-8001-6_9
Summation make a computer model of computer models, that would really tie some people up.
One advantage of wave power – if it was ever deployed – is that the devices don’t need antifouling applied. The reason for this advantage is also the biggest disadvantage – in that they break before any significant fouling has taken place.
The £1million would be much better reserved to initiate an X-prize, with suitable criteria for wave generation – significantly more power produced than total to construct, install and decommission, two years in service with no maintenance, etc. The big advantage of X-prizes is that the money stays in the treasury unless the targets are achieved. You just have to make sure the target is of greater benefit to the country than the prize, and then you hope to pay out, which should in itself help fund the developers further deployment of their technology.
Notable X-prizes were :-
Longitude – The Board of Longitude, eventually paid to John Harrison, and others for advances in navigation.
The Orteig prize won by Charles Lindbergh – the most famous prize for achieving a trans-Atlantic flight.
The Ansari X-prize won by Burt Rutan – SpaceShioOne for re-usable non-governmental space plane.
The L-prize from US Department of Energy, for very efficient light bulb with high quality light won by Phillips. (Reminds me to check if the Phillips Dubai Lightbulb will ever be available outside the UAE)
While the x-prize foundation has taken over the name, and runs a number of x-prizes, I think they would be better structured in a winner-takes-all format in order to better drive technological advance into actual use.
The track record of wave power so far is not impressive. Seven years ago, the wave device company Pelamis went into liquidation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelamis_Wave_Power
In 2010 the ‘Wave Hub’ was installed ten miles off the coast in West Cornwall, at a cost of £28 million. It’s purpose was to provide a test-bed for developers to evaluate pilot-scale devices that used wave power to generate electricity, under the demanding conditions that occur in off-shore situations.
http://www.wavehub.co.uk/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_Hub
Eleven years later, not a watt of power has passed along the cable to the shore station, designed to handle 20MW, and no commercial organisation seems the slightest bit interested.
Only one device has ever been trialled there: ‘Oceanus 2’ owned by
Seatricity http://seatricity.com/ The device was only in place for a few weeks in the Summer of 2016 for preliminary evaluation, before breaking free of its tether in relatively calm weather. It was never tested in severe winter storms. Despite optimistic press releases, ‘Oceanus 2’ was not connected to the Wave Hub again.
The Australian company ‘Carnegie’ booked a berth on the Wave Hub, but pulled out a few years ago. https://www.carnegiece.com/ An American company, Gwave also expressed an interest, but nothing has been heard of them for a long time. https://tinyurl.com/6t67he8
Meanwhile, the Wave Hub sits on the sea floor gathering barnacles, a £28 million white elephant. Occasionally there is an optimistic announcement in the local press about some development or other, but nothing actually happens and it has all been quiet for several years. There has even been talk of dismantling the Hub, such is the commercial interest in wave power.
The big problem with all these floating devices is making them robust
enough to withstand the extremely aggressive conditions presented by a
salt water environment, and more particularly, the winter storms. For example, wave heights in the vicinity of the Wave Hub can be as high as 60 feet. The destructive power in those big waves is massive. You only have to see the very heavy construction of various navigational buoys and their anchor chains around the Cornish coast to appreciate what is required to cope with the conditions.
What depresses me is that the EPSRC don’t seem to have learnt the lessons of previous failed attempts to harness wave power, and are putting money into yet another project that will come to nothing.
Professor Ma had expressed great interest in the involvement of climatologist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber in the project, but ran into resistance from ESRC Executive Chair Lynn Gladden. The more insistent Professor Ma became, the more rigid Ms Gladden’s opposition. The two had an explosive final confrontation in which Ms Gladden was heard to shout “Look, Ma, no Hans!”
Tidal energy is clean, powerful, dependable and and abundant. It’s amazing that no one has made a dent using amazing resource.
Yep. You can depend on it going to zero four times a day … at which point it has to be replaced by fossil fuel or other dispatchable power. So if you add a megawatt of tidal power to your grid you also have to add a megawatt of fossil power.
Not only that, but half the time that fossil power will be operating at half-output or less, which is generally inefficient.
Next, while tidal power is abundant, places where you can actually harness that power are quite rare. You need a large enclosed bay with a narrow entrance, and even then it may have to be further closed off with a barrage. Such sites are few and far between.
Finally, you underestimate the corrosive nature of the marine environment. You know the old saying “What goes around, comes around”?
In the South Pacific we used to say “What goes around … stops.”
As a result, it’s not surprising in the least that “no one has made a dent using this amazing resource.”
Regards,
w.
There is a sucker born every minute. That this guy can get paid to research this useless energy source is wonderful for him.
The idea that you can harvest useful energy from such low frequency waves illustrates the lack of understanding of physics in educated people.