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An Update on Large Scale Wave Energy Conversion

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An Update on Large Scale Wave Energy Conversion AN UPDATE ON LARGE SCALE WAVE ENERGY CONVERSION Rik van Hemmen, Fellow and Michael Raftery Member Martin Ottaway van Hemmen & Dolan, Inc. [email protected] [email protected] SNAME – SMC 2019 Technical Paper – Peer Reviewed Abstract Submission SNAME FACE: Engineers/Designers Topic: Design and Engineering, Sustainable Energy It is time for Wave Energy Conversion (WEC) to be part of the sustainable energy toolbox at a utility level. Solar and wind renewable power systems are now sustainable technologies which are economically competitive with existing fossil fuel and nuclear options. Even though there have been WEC development efforts as long as there have been industrial solar and wind efforts, WEC systems simply have never made it out of the experimental starting blocks. This paper examines prior efforts and examines why they have failed at a utility level and describes the design and engineering of emerging technologies that could make large scale wave energy conversion competitive with present state of the art large scale wind and solar projects. The SurfWEC concept is introduced as a game changing approach to achieve much lower Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) rates than are achievable with existing WEC approaches by enabling significant increases in kinetic energy input to various WEC designs. KEY WORDS: Renewable Energy; Marine Renewable IEC TC-114: IEC Technical Committee for Marine Energy; Wave Energy Converter; WEC; Marine Hydrokinetic; Energy Standards development and MHK; SurfWEC; Future Energy; Sustainable Energy management TERMINOLOGY LCOE: Levelized Cost Of Energy ABS: American Bureau of Shipping: Standards, Name Plate See Plate Capacity Certification, and Classification Agency Capacity: Aliquot: A 1.2km x 1.2km portion of a 4.8km x NJBIN: New Jersey Business Incubation Network 4.8km BOEM – OCS permit block BOEM: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, NJ BPU: New Jersey Board of Public Utilities Division of the US Department of Interior OCS: Outer Continental Shelf BOP: Balance of Plant, the infrastructure required to connect an offshore renewable OREC: Offshore Renewable Energy Certificate power project to the shore grid (New Jersey state program) DNV-GL: Det Standards, Certification, and OSW: Offshore Wind Norske Veritas Classification Agency PJM: Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland - Germanischer Interconnection, a Regional Transmission Lloyd: Operator (RTO), part of the Eastern DNV-OSS- Document pertaining to: Certification of Interconnection electric power grid 312: Tidal and Wave Energy Converters management companies EMEC: European Marine Energy Centre Plate Capacity: Nameplate capacity, Rated Capacity, maximum electric power output of a ERFD: European Fund for Regional device, not continuously produced using Development solar, wind, or wave energy conversion devices EROEI: Energy Returned on Energy Invested PTO: Power takeoff IEC: International Electrotechnical Commission SCADA: Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition sustainable power sources with recorded uses dating back tens of thousands of years. SurfWEC: Surf-making Wave Energy Converter Today, in the twenty first century, there is a definitive trend to TLP: Tension Leg Platform dominance of sustainable power over hydrocarbon power. It is actually quite difficult to define sustainable power, but there are USGS: United States Geological Survey two approaches to defining it. The first approach is to define sustainable power as power options and innovations that USPTO: United States Patent and Trade Office continually reduce humanity’s overall carbon dioxide and other Wave Hub: 48MW Wave power research facility greenhouse gas emissions. The other approach is to list opened off Hayle, Cornwall U.K. in 2010 technologies that are somehow recognized as sustainable power regardless of emissions or biproducts. WEC: Wave Energy Converter The latter option is much more open for debate, but, for the sake WEHD: Wave Energy Harnessing Device of discussion, we provide a list of sustainable power (acronym associated with patent technologies in Table 1. US8093736B2) Type Theoretical Technical Truly Carbon Carbon Zero LCOE Installed Viability Viability Sustainable Neutral? Electricity $/kWh Base USA ? Production? GW INTRODUCTION Hydro viable viable yes yes yes 0.02-.19 102 Geothermal viable viable yes yes yes .04-.14 3 Energy is the central driver of human development. Human Land Based Wind viable viable yes yes yes .03-.05 96 Thermal Solar viable viable yes yes yes .06-.07 5 progress is directly related to the way that humans harvest, store, PV Solar viable viable yes yes yes 0.04-.06 67 Tidal viable some places yes yes yes unknown 0.005 and use energy. In human terms, access to energy is power Offshore Wind viable viable yes yes yes .16-.20 0.03 (Ref. 1,2). Biomass viable viable yes no no .09-.10 8 Corn Ethanol 10Bn poor short term no no no .10 -.12 30 Gal/Yr Initially humans only harvested energy through hunting and Algae poor possible unknown could be no unknown 0 Nuclear Fission viable viable centuries yes yes 0.08-0.09 100 gathering. In primitive societies, humans learned to preserve Nuclear Fusion viable maybe in 30 yes yes yes unknown 0 years and store some foods to use when there was limited fresh food Wave Energy viable in some yes yes yes 0.50 0 available. The food preservation and storage technologies Conversion cases Table 1: Sustainable Power Technology Comparison allowed humans to migrate from equatorial climates, where food is continuously available, to parts of the world where most of This paper does not delve deeply into the comparisons of the the food supply is dependent upon the weather in various various sustainable technologies. The references used to populate seasons. this table are provided after the text references at the end of this document. It can be claimed that everybody may have their With the discovery of fire, humans were able to extend the favorites for various reasons. However, the table does provide an productive part of their day with light and heat they could interesting illustration. While wind and solar are now established control and improve their productivity by building tools from players in the sustainable energy basket, wave energy has not metals. found a commercial footing. This is a shame since wave energy Harnessing of wind allowed humans to increase their transport is available at greater magnitude than wind and solar combined efficiency through sails, and the invention of steam-powered (Ref. 3,4). Wind and solar both require more space to harvest machines allowed the creation of more productive factories. energy than waves, as the average wave energy resource is At that stage, humanity began to transition from a wood to a capable of producing over three times more power per unit coal-powered society. In the early 1900’s, humans started surface area of Earth than wind or solar devices, and solar has transitioning from coal to more efficient oil and gas-powered very little generation capacity during cloudy days and no machines, and in rough terms, it can be noted that in the late generation capacity at night. The annual average availability of 1900’s humanity started taking an interest in more sustainable wind power is approximately half the availability of wave power energy sources for society. globally (Ref. 5,6,7,8,9,10). The demarcation lines are not all that sharp; in the mid 1900’s This paper will provide some guidance as to why WEC has not nuclear power arrived as a sustainable energy source and other yet become economically viable and will provide some forms of sustainable energy have existed for thousands of years suggestions to make WEC commercially viable (based on both in the form of sail transportation, hydro and windmill power. lessons learned in the past and emerging technologies) (Ref. Wood and other biomass energy, in their purest forms, are also 11,12) based on cumulative lessons learned during WEC van Hemmen AN UPDATE ON LARGE SCALE WAVE ENERGY CONVERSION 2 SMC 2019 research and development over decades (Ref. sharp contrast to the last century that focused entirely on 13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21) and become a component in a ensuring access to fossil fuels (oil and gas) by hook or by crook. wind, wave, and solar sustainable energy triad. Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) Developing a sustainable power society (reduced carbon Historical and Projected emissions to zero carbon emissions) is more complicated than simply converting different forms of energy to power to do 40 useful amounts of work. The large inertial force, metaphorically 35 speaking, against the switch from a hydrocarbon-based (more 30 accurately; fossil fuel-based) energy system to a sustainable 25 energy system is related to the remarkable versatility of 20 1 hydrocarbons as a fuel . Hydrocarbons are inherently a form of 15 predictably available stored energy that can be readily 10 LCOE (cents/kWh) transported prior to use. Meanwhile, sustainable energy 5 struggles with predictability, harvesting, storage and transport. 0 Instead of living within a society where one energy type size fits 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 all, to achieve sustainability, we now have to switch to a society Year where we have to build systems and infrastructures where Solar PV Onshore Wind energy gets delivered through a wide variety of approaches with Nuclear Coal generation, storage, and transportation of hydrogen fuels from Gas various sustainable power sources as an emerging option. While this process will require a great deal of political will, public Figure 1: Comparison of Levelized Cost of Energy of various support, and innovation, there is a bright side to the switch to producers (source: energyinnovation.org). sustainable energy. At first glance, the bright side might be seen as the opportunity to save our viable climate from the ill effects Figure 1 shows that, today, land-based wind and solar of global warming, but there is actually a much brighter side to harvesting approaches are starting to beat the fossil fuel energy this societal change.
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