#corpower

E’ il progetto della società svedese CorPower che utilizza il movimento delle onde dell’oceano. Una boa larga 8 metri riesce a fornire energia idroelettrica per 250 kilowatt di potenza a circa 200 abitazioni. L’idea nasce dall’emulazione del movimento del cuore umano e la capacità di assorbire energia in maniera combinata sia dalla corrente superficiale che dal movimento di sollevamento delle onde. I progettisti svedesi sostengono che la creazione di centinaia di boe porterebbe alla produzione di energia elettrica pulita per interi quartieri e stimano che il 10-20% per cento del totale di energia elettrica sulla Terra potrebbe essere alimentata attraverso l‘energia delle onde.

The Wonder-Buoy That May Finally Make Wave Energy Feasible

  WITH ALL THAT to-and-fro and ebb-and-flow, the motions of the ocean offer an endless supply of renewable energy. Or they would, if engineers could figure out how to capture that power. Most prototypes for wave-energy converters have been massive and costly, or else they’re torn apart during violent storms at sea. But a Swedish company called CorPower Ocean may finally have a solution. Tests…

http://scitechnews.co.uk/wind-wave-tidal/gear-technology-helps-lower-cost-of-wave-energy-farming/

Gear technology helps lower cost of wave energy farming

A Swedish company has cracked the challenge of scaling up wave energy, with the help of technology from researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

CorPower Ocean’s new wave energy system, which uses a gearbox design that KTH researchers helped develop, generates five times more energy per ton of device, at one third of the cost when compared to competing state-of-the art technologies. Energy output is three to four times higher than traditional wave power systems.

The company’s innovation was recently awarded EUR 100,000 at the MIT Building Global Innovators Demo Day.

Wave energy has been held back in part because of the cost of electricity generation. The amount of steel and concrete needed in order to produce each MWh has simply been too great to make it into a profitable business. Even still, the power of waves presents a problem with reliability; and because waves vary greatly in height and timing, it’s difficult to create a conversion system that functions across the full wave spectrum.

Known in the wave energy industry as a point absorber type system, the CorPower converter consists of a buoy that absorbs energy from the waves, plus a drivetrain that converts the buoy’s motion into electricity. The company’s system is based on Swedish cardiologist Stig Lundbäck’ patents, some of which are inspired by his research into heart pumping and control functions.