AWS are specialists in marine energy, having been involved in and conducted a wide variety of research and development projects across the years.
This involvement, from concept development to scale proofs and beyond, has enabled us to garner expertise across a variety of areas including sub-sea wave power, floating wave power, elastomers, controllable moorings, and other advanced marine energy concepts.
Our business model is to license our technologies to delivery partners and we welcome the opportunity to discuss how these technologies can be applied to solve problems for your customers. Equally, we will be happy to engage with customers to develop entirely new technologies to meet a specific challenge or need.
Further details of the main technologies we have investigated are presented below.
Our Archimedes Waveswing wave energy converter is a pressure-activated sub-sea buoy which benefits from 20 years of research and development and is recognised as one of the most promising concepts for the commercial generation of renewable energy from ocean waves.
The Waveswing is fundamentally different from other wave power concepts offering significantly greater power capture potential than floating devices of a similar size. Its sub-sea location and ability to winch deep below storm waves enable it to survive the harsh conditions in an offshore environment.
The AWS-III is a multi-cell array of flexible membrane absorbers which covert wave power to pneumatic power through compression of air within each cell. The cells are inter-connected, thus allowing interchange of air between cells in anti-phase. Turbine-generator sets are provided to convert the pneumatic power to electricity.
A typical device will comprise an array of 9 cells, each measuring around 16m wide by 8m deep, arranged around a catamaran structure. Such a device is capable of producing an average of 2.4 MW from a rough sea whilst having a structural steel weight of less than 3500 tonne. The AWS-III will be slack moored in water depths of around 100m using standard mooring spreads.
Our Electric Eel™ wave power concept represents the next generation of wave power devices. It consists of a long elastic tube which is tethered below the surface of the sea. A passing wave causes a pressure or ‘bulge’ wave to propagate along the elastic tube. Power is extracted by smart electro-active polymer panels built into the sides of the tube. These panels are entirely flexible and produce an electric current when stretched.
The Electric Eel™ represents an advance over other ‘bulge wave’ based devices in that it is capable of continuous power extraction along its length, thus avoiding the limits which would occur otherwise when the bulge wave grows too large. It is also capable of active control to tune to the incoming wave frequency by regulation of stiffness through control of the EAP electronics.
We have completed the concept designs for this technology, have granted patents in a number of jurisdictions and are now seeking technology partners to advance to the next stage of development.
