A) The Advanced Waveboost PTO system for Wave Energy Converters
In response to the R&D needs identified, the WaveBoost project will focus on developing a new subsystem to deliver significant and measurable improvements in reliability and survivability, performance and cost. As an additional benefit, and further contributing to improvements in cost and availability, significant improvements in grid integration will be delivered. The advanced waveboost PTO system consists of building blocks that are well understood in other sectors including automotive, air-planes and rail road infrastructure but has, to date, not been applied to WECs. This provides the opportunity for a new generation of end-of-stroke braking system, delivering improvements of the current state-of-the-art. In many cases, it can be argued that for the wave energy sector no performance benchmarks are yet established. It is the ambition of WaveBoost to fill this gap in key areas for credible future predictions, as well as set higher limits of performance indicators already existing.
B) A new business model
During the development of CorPower Ocean’s WEC technology, the interest from other developers as well as other industries have led to the consideration of a new business model for CorPower Ocean: that the technology development may be better valorized by being a supplier of PTOs or subsystems instead of being a full WEC system supplier. Such shift could allow for better focus and optimization of resources and skills, while reducing the high uncertainty both upstream (technical risks and funding) and downstream (market risks). In the short term however, due to the lack of commercial wave energy systems where the advanced waveboost PTO system could be integrated and due to the lack of verification in full scale, CorPower Ocean is continuing with the development of the entire WEC system. Once proven in first arrays, the opportunity to narrow the focus to the PTO or subsystems may be attractive.
C) An advanced hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test rig for WECs
Further advance to the sector will be providing new methods and testing infrastructure. By enhancing the HIL test rig with a wet chamber, the project will enable EMEC to provide valuable new services to the industry, providing a new infrastructure to accelerate technology development at a lower cost and risk.
D) New and improved methods for the sector
Also, the application of reliability assessment and improvement methods from other sectors including automotive by RISE (VMEA, see WP 6) and offshore wind by EDP will be established for wave energy converters and first benchmarks provided to the sector, advancing the sector's credibility. Methods and tools on performance assessment (WP5) and LCOE modelling (WP6) will also be enhanced and validated, allowing WAVEC and the University of Edinburgh (UEDIN) improve their services.
