| Energy coming from waves..Impossible mission ? |
|
|
It is at Hurup Thy that we meet at 9:00 AM Per Resen Steenstrup for a visit.. on the sea. Welcome at Wave Star Energy in the Jutland island in the north west of Denmark. Since July 2006, it is here that is tested a machine producing energy coming from the one of the waves… An ambitious idea but not so crazy from Per Resen Steenstrup.A long term project on which a team of 12 people is hardly working for a couple of years. This prototype, 10 ftimes smaller than the final one, is perfectly working ! IIt supported 12 storms and reached its 13.000 operating hours without any major problem. The principle is rather simple : Cylindric buoys are linked to a pontoon (fixed at the sea-bed) by a hydraulic axis. The buoys go up and down with the movement of the waves tighly packing and unpacking the liquid contained in the hydraulic axis. This makes an engine running and is thus an electric generator. This prototype includes 40 buoys of 1 meter in diameter and produces on the whole 5,5 KW. It is not very much, but when multiplying the buoys diameter by 5, one produces 280 times more electricity ( a mathematical rule is hidden here!). At the end of 2008, another prototype with only 2 buoys of 5 meters in diameter will take place. At the end of 2009 a prototype of 40 buoys of 5 meters in diameter will wuggle with th waves of the North Sea.
The final device will have 40 buoys of 15 meters in diameter which can work with 7,5 meters waves, producing 24 MW. It is difficult to define its price, the development of these new technologies is very recent.
Our visionnary invested at the beginning all his money to launch researches, a great Danish family is bringing now the required funds to the result of the project. IThere are other companies throughout the world developping such systems (Pelamis Wave Delivery, Wave Dragon, Sea Based) but today and Per Resen Steenstrupcan be proud of it, it is only Wave Star Energywhich is working. The others are repairing because of setting problems and of storms… Per knows well that another system makes great noise in Scotland and in Portugal, the Pelamis. But he peacefully enumerates the advantages of his system and does not want to spend a lot of money in the investment of the final device. He does not like moving up the ladder very quickly. He simply says that he likes taking his time to do everything well…
At the end of the pier, a strange thing!
 Here, here it is! 40 buoys of 1 meter in diameter following the movement of the waves  Per, the visionary, very good teacher and very friendly!  Hydraulic axis linking the buoy to the pontoon.  The hydraulic system and the generator  The interest of having all these buoys the one close to the other is that the generator is running all the time. If there were only 2 enormous buoys, there would be no more electricity between 2 waves. |
|
| Users' Comments |
Average user rating
|
|
Je viens de repérer votre site et je le trouve génial!!! |
|
Great initiativ by Matt & Dim to spread knowledge on new innovative activities. |
|
J'adore cette technologie! A plus grande echelle, il faut esperer que le systeme final puisse resister aux differentes intemperies des differentes regions du monde...! |
Display 10 of 10 comments
By: stmars () on 24-04-2008