Finnish wave energy developer AW-Energy has started the design work for the MegaRoller project with the partners from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland who will contribute to the scheme with their expertise on instrumentation.
VTT team visited AW-Energy to participate in a workshop whose purpose was to start the design work for the MegaRoller test bench, and power take-off (PTO) instrumentation, and to define the way the instrumentation knowledge of the research center can be best utilized in the project.
Held at the test facility in Järvenpää in Finland, which features a full-scale PTO, and a wave machine used to simulate real world wave conditions to which the system is subjected to – the workshop was one in a series of workshops, visits and meetings held to advance the MegaRoller test bench and PTO design work.
To remind, AW-Energy secured €5 million from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program to develop the PTO unit for 1MW wave energy device under the 3-year MegaRoller project.
VTT experts were offered an in-depth presentation of the instrumentation of both the wave machine and the PTO during an extensive tour of the facilities, according to AW-Energy.
Tuula Mäki , AW-Energy Product Quality and Certification Manager, said: “Participants were excited to see the PTO, the wave machine and the instrumentation as viewing the devices in action helps to understand the requirements and functionalities of the instruments better, providing useful insights for the development work.”
With the MegaRoller project, AW-Energy aims to further drive down the levelized cost of energy (LCOE), and produce a commercially feasible PTO for 1MW device.
Coordinated by Hydroll, other project partners in the MegaRoller project include ABB Finland, Cruz Atcheson, WavEC, Hydman, SINTEF, VTT, the University of Bergen and the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology.