Engineering and technology development company 4c Engineering is finalizing tank testing activities on its Sea Power Platform at the FloWave test facility in Edinburgh.
The team from 4c Engineering has over the last couple of weeks been assessing power conversion performance on a scale model of the Sea Power Platform in a variety of sea states being replicated at FloWave test tank.
The work is being carried out as part of Wave Energy Scotland’s Novel Wave Energy Converter project, where 4c Engineering is leading the technology development work in partnership with Sea Power.
Andy Hall , Mechanical Engineer and Director at 4C Engineering, said: “Throughout this testing we’ve been recording data to show how efficiently the Sea Power Platform can convert energy in the waves to mechanical energy to be used in the generation of electricity.
“Each test logs the motion of the device, the profile of the waves, forces, torques, positions and pressures. Using MATLAB, we analyse the data immediately after each test run to check we’ve successfully measured everything that we need. Often we can only decide which run to carry out next once we have the processed data so it’s vital to have a quick, reliable process in place.
“As our testing draws to a close we’ve got plenty of work ahead analysing all the data we’ve logged and using it to guide future development of the wave energy converter.”
The Sea Power Platform is a two-body wave energy converter that has been under development since 2008.
The converter is classified as a floating attenuator device with energy extracted via the relative flex motion of the two bodies about a hinged joint. A power take-off (PTO) system extracts power by damping the flex motion of the device, according to Wave Energy Scotland.
To remind, the Scottish wave body supported the testing activities with £700,000 as part of the Attenuator Cost of Energy Reduction (ACER2) project , which received funding back in spring 2017.
Aside from 4C Engineering and Sea Power, other project partners include FloWave, 4c Design, Offshore Subsea Consultancy Services, and Ideality.
The second stage of Wave Energy Scotland’s NWEC program is expected to run until fall 2018.