Southampton: EPSRC funds research into wave energy conversion

Development opportunity

Engineers at the University of Southampton have won £430,000 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to investigate the hydrodynamics of a distendable wave energy converter. The device,  a rubber wave energy concept called Anaconda, has an ultra-simple design which makes its manufacture affordable. The inventors are seeking partners for co-development of a full-size prototype.

Named after the South-American snake, the Anaconda is a rubber tube, closed at both ends, designed to be anchored just below the surface of the sea. On contact with the tube, waves induce a bulge wave, – a wave of pressure produced when a fluid oscillates forwards and backwards inside a tube – that passes through a turbine producing power that is fed to shore via cable.

The technology will bypass the need for hydraulic rams, hinges and articulated joints due to the flexible nature of rubber. The full-size devices are expected to be 200 metres long and 7 metres in diameter and will have many degrees of freedom and motions – such as vertical and horizontal bending, bulging, stretching, ovalling and twisting – that conventional metallic devices lack. 

So far the concept has only been proven in the laboratory at a very small scale, but engineers at the University of Southampton are collaborating with the research council, developer Checkmate SeaEnergy and the inventors to develop large-scale laboratory experiments and mathematical models to determine its potential performance.

The full-size Anaconda is estimated to be able to generate about 1MW, sufficient to power 2000 houses with electricity, at a cost of 6p per kWh.

John Chaplin, one of the inventors, said: “The Anaconda could make a valuable contribution to environmental protection by encouraging the use of wave power, who is leading the project. A one-third scale model of the Anaconda could be built next year for sea testing and we could see the first full-size device deployed off the UK coast in around five years’ time.”