Division of Experimental Physics: The Norwegian Institute of Technology: University of Trondheim
Doi
Abstract
Several official assessments of wave-power plants in Norway show decreasing figures for the estimated cost of wave energy. The latest updating seems to confirm some of the points in our own assessment of a phase-controlled power-buoy plant, where we estimate the energy cost to be roughly 0.6 kr/kWh (5 pence/kWh) which has prospects to be reduced to 0.3 kr/kWh (3 p/kWh) in the future. This cost would be competitive on national energy supply markets. Among many different assessed wave-energy devices the phase-controlled power buoy is outstanding in having a rather low investment of energy, materials and money in relation to the produced energy per year. On the other hand, relatively much labour is required to construct and maintain the plant. Since the device contains some critical moving parts, more development work and full scale testing in the sea are required in order to obtain acceptable lifetime and reliability. Such a development program should be started as soon as possible. The program may result in knowledge on how to design a reliable device. Our project has been pursued with design work to a stage where the next step is to construct a full-scale test buoy. However, since funds for such work are not yet available, our research team now continues its work another aspect of wave power, i.a. work on mini- power devices and on phase-control of oscillating water columns
