Aquamarine Power says that it has reached a significant milestone with the production of first power by its WavePod prototype.
The tenth-scale prototype was developed by Aquamarine and Bosch Rexroth and began its laboratory test programme at the Institute for Fluid Power Drives and Controls (IFAS) at RWTH Aachen University in Germany in mid-November.
The WavePod sigifies Aquamarine's desire to develop a standardised, self-contained offshore electricity generator for the wave energy industry. The firm is aiming to carry out a programme of installation, operation, maintenance and decommissioning in real sea wave conditions in 2016.
The prototype comprises a drive train, cylinder frame and power take off. "We are now generating electrical power, and the drive train is using real-life hydrodynamic data from Oyster 800 to ensure the power take off is experiencing exactly the same loads it would encounter at sea," said John Malcolm, Aquamarine Power CEO. "We aim to finish lab testing by March next year and plan to install a further prototype in real sea conditions on our Oyster 800 machine in Orkney in 2016.
The WavePOD prototype development and testing programme receives funding support from the Scottish government's Marine Renewables Commercialisation Fund (MRCF), managed by the Carbon Trust. Other partners in the project include wave technology developers Albatern, Carnegie Wave Energy UK and M4 WavePower. It also includes Irish utility ESB, the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, IFAS and University College Dublin's Energy Research Centre.
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