Aquamarine Enlists BAE Systems In Project To Scale Up 'Oyster' Wave Energy Device
Eric Lindeman
Global defence, security and aerospace company BAE Systems is partnering with Scotland's wave energy developer Aquamarine Power as part of a $1.6 million project valued to support a 30 month research, development and demonstration project aimed at achieving large-scale commercial production of Aquamarine's Oyster wave energy conversion technology.
Aquamarine described its wave energy converter device as a buoyant hinged flap that is attached to the seabed and moves backwards and forwards in nearshore waves, pumping high pressure water onshore to drive a hydro-electric turbine, which then generates electricity for the national grid.
The U.K.'s Technology Strategy Board awarded a $698,000 grant to the companies, which they match-funded, to develop innovations that will "drive down maintenance costs and help to maximize energy production," Aquamarine said in a July 25 announcement, "paving the way for this ground-breaking technology to be rolled out on a commercial scale to establish Oyster clean energy farms around the world."
Aquamarine also completed a $9.3 million funding round this year and has subsequently been awarded more than $4.7 million from the Scottish government's WATERS (Wave and Tidal Energy: Research, Development and Demonstration Support) fund. The company said it is seeking a major investment partner and a strategic technology partner to take the Oyster device through to commercialization.
Under the BAE systems-Aquamarine partnership, engineers who typically design, repair and maintain complex naval systems will work with Aquamarine to develop an intelligent diagnostic system and remote ballasting mechanism. “This is a great opportunity for us to apply skills developed in naval design and the management of large complex maritime engineering programmes to support the emerging marine energy industry," said Kevin McLeod, BAE Systems’ engineering director in its Surface Ships division.
“In working with Aquamarine Power as a partner, we are helping to pioneer commercial clean energy solutions that will help the U.K. meet its ambitious climate change targets.”
“The Oyster system works well,” Aquamarine CEO Martin McAdam boasted. “Our next step is to drive down the cost of electricity generated from wave power through improvements in Oyster reliability and reduced maintenance costs.
“BAE Systems is a fantastic company with extensive experience in marine systems performance modelling and analysis. Our companies are very different in size, but we share a passion for engineering excellence and a belief in the global potential of wave energy. We are grateful to the Technology Strategy Board for providing the grant funding which has enabled this collaboration to take place.”
Aquamarine’s Oyster technology is based on research conducted at Queen’s University Belfast and funded by an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research grant to Queen’s between 2002 and 2004 to develop surging power-wave devices. The company's first Oyster was deployed November 20 last year at the European Marine Energy Centre’s (EMEC) Billia Croo site near Stromness, Scotland, where the device was installed last summer. It marked the first time that a large-scale wave energy device has fed electricity into a national grid.
Designed to capture the energy in near-shore waves in water depths between 10 and 16 meters, the Oyster has a hinged flap, connected to the seabed, that moves as each wave passes. The kinetic energy drives a hydraulic piston, delivering high pressure water to an onshore electricity-generating turbine. It involves very few moving parts, giving the device the durability to survive Scotland’s rough seas, and all electrical components are onshore.
“By 2050 we are going to have very different energy needs than we have today,"said Iain Gray, chief executive of the Technology Strategy Board, "and we will be getting our energy from different sources. The U.K. is well placed to exploit wave and tidal stream energy resources with all of the coast line that we have, and it is expected this kind of technology will be an important part of the renewable energy mix needed in the future.
But, he added, “We still need to prove which technological solutions will most successfully harness marine energy and we need to reduce the cost of the energy produced to make the technology competitive with other renewable energy solutions. So there are a range of technological challenges to address.”
BAE Systems is already involved in a number of initiatives to support the renewable energy sector. The defence company actively works with the wind farm industry to resolve issues about their disruption to radars. Its engineers designed the electrical distribution system for the largest land-based wind farm in Europe at Whitelee, and BAE Systems is also working with partners to develop an deepwater offshore windfarm design.
A farm of 20 Oyster devices, like the one christened last November, can produce 10 MW, but Aquamarine’s plans call for Oysters to be deployed in utility-scale wave farms of 100 MW or more. Aquamarine’s team has also developed unique tools to identify and evaluate marine energy sites around the world. Using its in-house model of tidal and wave power resources along the coasts of the United Kingdom and Ireland, the company claims to have identified several gigawatts of promising sites. In February 2009, the company signed a development agreement with Airtricity, the renewable energy development division of Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), for developing sites capable of hosting 1,000 MW of marine energy by 2020.
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