Various different wave energy mechanisms have been developed over the past few years encompassing various shapes and methods for capturing the power of waves.  Now a company has found an innovative way to combine two great green energy technologies, wave power and wind power.

Green Ocean Energy has developed a variation of its Ocean Treader (wave power collector) called the Wave Treader that can be combined with an off shore deep water wind turbine to generate additional energy and conserve costs. 

By sharing the high infrastructure costs with another device, such as the foundation costs, cabling costs, etc., the economics of both devices are enhanced and the energy yield for a given sea area greatly improved.

Key features of the Wave Treader are:

• Projected over 500 KW rating.
• Infrastructure overheads shared with Wind Turbine giving higher profitability.
• Higher Yield per unit area of Sea.
• 50m long, 20m beam.
• Very few Single Point Failure modes will lead to a high level of reliability.
• Standard, Proven Marine Construction – Steel & GRP.
• Major mechanical components are standard Marine Specification ‘off the shelf’ items.
• 25 year design life, 5 years between major refits.
• Modular design means ease of component change-out.
• Simple design will mean low manufacturing costs and high reliability.
• Low levels of intrusion to the marine environment..

According to the British Wind Energy Association report ‘UK Offshore Wind Energy: Moving Up a Gear’ 2007, between the years 2006 – 2010 480 offshore wind turbines will be installed, and between 2011 – 2015 1000 offshore wind turbines will be installed. Therefore it can be seen that the market for Wave Treader is substantial.

Imagine combining the Wave Treader with SeaEnergy Renewables off shore deep water five megawatt wind turbines.  The power generated would be tremendous and would provide more power per area of Ocean than  wind turbines do alone.  From now through 2015, 1480 wind turbines are expected to be built off of the shores of the United Kingdom.  Now imagine how many more deep sea wind turbines will be built off the shores of the European Union, North and South America, Asia, Africa and Australia.

By combining wind power and wave power in the same areas, you get more bang for your buck. 

Now if there was only a way to add solar to that…..

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Entry was posted on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 at 3:51 pm under Green Technology.

Read more entries by Susan Wilson.
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