CorPower wave device feeds power to Swedish grid

CorPower Ocean’s wave energy device has delivered power to the Swedish grid during dry testing currently taking place in Stockholm.

The 1:2 scale CorPower S3 resonant wave energy converter delivered the first power in April 2017, while operating in simulated waves using a 500kW Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) test rig in CorPower’s integration facility in Stockholm.

The HIL rig is used to supply the device with mechanical loading representing the full range of sea states.

This allows for debugging and stabilizing the system in simulated waves, including storm conditions, the Swedish wave energy developer said.

The dry test program has been designed to accelerate the product development and de-risk the ocean demonstration, set to take place in fall 2017 at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney.

Jean-Michel Chauvet, Director of Integration and Testing at CorPower, said: “We are currently ramping up the system through safety and functional testing, working step-wise to reach full power. The dry test program will be concluded with non-interrupt testing, aiming to deliver a stable machine with high availability through the upcoming ocean deployment in Scotland.”

CorPower Ocean developed a wave energy device whose design was inspired by the pumping principles of human heart, using a power take-off (PTO) system that combines the high load capabilities from hydraulics with the efficiency of mechanical drive.

Its buoys oscillate in resonance with incoming waves, and by using the phase control technology which amplifies the motion of the waves, the device increases power capture.

The verification of CorPower’s phase controlled wave energy converter (WEC) technology is expected to bring significant improvement to the reliability and competitiveness of harvesting energy from ocean waves, CorPower said.

Its product development follows a structured five-stage verification process established as best practices for ocean energy devices by International Energy Agency-OES and Wave Energy Scotland.

It involves step-wise validation of survivability, performance, reliability and economics starting with small scale prototypes in Stage 1, continued by sub-system testing and then fully integrated WEC in increasing scales up to array demonstration in Stage 5.

The current Stage 3 program follows the prior testing of multiple prototypes in smaller scales performed in Portugal, France and Sweden since 2013.