A partnership between a startup Portuguese and a Swedish company, Corpower Ocean, has allowed the development of a new power generation system, through the waves, more resistant and cheaper than the systems presented and tested up to now.
The journalist Miguel Midões was to get to know a energy generator with Portuguese technology
Was created by a float, which although anchored to the bottom of the ocean, it can produce the energy with the oscillation caused by the currents and by the waves.
In the first phase that is now ending, and that counted with the collaboration of the startup Portuguese Composite Solutions, the company invested six million euros. In the next step, which corresponds to the mounting of the electronics and the testing phase, will be invested 15 million euros.
significant Amount of money, but that the consortium believes it is possible to recover, since a float produces at least three times more energy than a wind turbine.
The first novelty of this technology is in weight. “It is a half scale and only weighs three tons. Initially, in steel, only the structure outside were 11 tons”, explains Ricardo Granddaughter of Composite Solutions.
The float built in Portugal, with 11m of length and 4m in diameter, is on the way from Sweden, where it will be tested during five months. “I will have a dry test, meaning a test on the dry land, where we have an equipment to generate the movement of the waves. When we have two weeks of operation at 100%, with the maximum load, we put the equipment in the water”. What should happen in the north of Scotland.
Ricardo Granddaughter explains how it works energy production in the float: “we Have the movement up and down, and then you have a cylinder on the inside that tab is a box of gears, which drives generators, which transmit energy by a cable to earth”.
This energy can be used by any person, being inserted in the network without any processing, since it is clean energy.
And that this project can be good for the Uk? “Our coast is huge, and the industries are on the coast, so if we have a way to generate energy where it is needed all the costs might be lower.”
Ricardo Neta talks of a “mother lode” that Portugal is not taking advantage: “look at the arab countries that have oil, and we also wanted the oil, but we have the sea, that is able to generate the same energy with less impact to the environment”.
The presentation of this new buoy power producer took place in Ílhavo, in the ship-museum Santo André.
In the portfolio of benefits is also the resistance, since this technology, built in Portugal, provides an ability to face the worst scenarios, such as storms, sea for several consecutive days, something that was not yet possible up to now.
wave power is the clean energy more efficient because it does not depend on the sun or wind. Even with small waves, it is insurance that the tube will oscillate, and thus to produce energy, without interruptions.
The startup Composite Solutions was established in 2014, is especially geared toward the ocean and to the creation of composite structures for marine, and this new float is one of their major projects.
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