The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras researchers have developed an ¡®Ocean Wave Energy Converter¡¯ that is capable of generating electricity straight from the moving sea waves.
Researchers successfully completed the trials for this device recently at a location around 6 kilometres off the coast of Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, with a depth of 20 meters.?
Named Sindhuja-I, (meaning generated from the ocean) the setup has a floating buoy, a spar and an electric module. The buoy moves up and down with the waves. Within this is a central hole that allows a long rod dubbed spar to pass through.?
The spar can be fixed to the seabed and passing waves don¡¯t really affect it. Whereas the buoy would move along the waves and produce relative motion between them. This then moves an electric generator to produce power. In the current setup, the spar floats whereas a chain keeps the whole system in place.?
The device is targeted towards remote offshore locations that need reliable electricity and communication either by supplying electric power to payloads that are embedded on the device or located nearby on a seabed and in the water column.?
Key target stakeholders for this project are oil and gas, defence and security installations as well as communication sectors.?
The project is the brainchild of IIT Madras faculty professor, Abdus Samad, who has been working on wave-energy tech for over a decade. He set up the state-of-the-art ¡®Wave Energy and Fluids Engineering Laboratory¡¯ at IIT Madras.
His team designed and tested a scaled-down model and is currently looking at other applications for this tech such as producing power for smaller devices for the ocean such as navigational buoys and data buoys.?
Professor Abdus Samad, Department of Ocean Engineering, IIT Madras, said, ¡°India has a 7,500 km long coastline capable of producing 54 GW of power, satisfying a substantial amount of the country¡¯s energy requirement. Seawater stores tidal, wave and Ocean thermal energy. Among them, the harnessing of 40GW wave energy is possible in India.¡±?
He added, ¡°Even single devices in different locations along the Indian coastline can generate large quantities of clean power. We are also contemplating placing multiple devices in an array configuration for maximum wave power extraction from the location. Our vision is to make India sustainable by tapping marine energy and net zero carbon emission to mitigate climate impact,¡± Professor Abdus Samad added.
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