Autonomous PowerBuoy
Company: Ocean Power Technologies
The PowerBuoy has two main parts: a moving float that's 5 feet in diameter by 5 feet tall and a 25-foot-tall spar anchoring it. When the float bobs up and down on the wave, it tugs on the spar. That stretching gets translated into electricity by a rotary motor and generator.
One significant challenge to the design, says Phil Hart, OPT's chief technology officer, was getting the buoy to properly resist the waves. In order to get electricity out of puny waves, the resistance between the float and the spar needs to be low—otherwise, the weakling wave won't move the buoy at all. But bigger waves contain more energy, and by increasing the force needed to move the float, OPT can harness more of that energy. Thus, PowerBuoy needs low resistance at some times and high resistance at other times. To solve the problem, they've implemented a computer that adjusts the device's resistance 10 times per second, leading to a big increase in efficiency.
Each PowerBuoy currently operating off the coast of Hawaii has a capacity of 0.04 megawatts, but an upcoming installation in Scotland may be able to generate up to 0.15 megawatts.
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