Columbia Power Technologies About Us Wave Power Technology News Contact

Development

Columbia Power provided the majority of funding to upgrade the WESRF Lab facility with an advanced 10 kW Linear Test Bed (LTB) for rapid prototyping of wave energy devices. The LTB is designed to generate force and velocity profiles similar to those generated by ocean waves. This enables dynamic and controlled testing of the devices in the lab, which is more cost effective and not subject to weather windows. The LTB is able integrate captured wave profiles from ocean monitoring buoys, in order to more accurately simulate the response to forces from ocean waves.

 

 
 
The improved 10 kilowatt wave energy buoy that uses a prototype linear generator was deployed for testing 2.5 miles off Newport Oregon over five days in September 2008. It successfully generated energy peaks in the 10kW to 15kW range in a relatively mild summer wave climate. The buoy design is self reacting to simplify mooring design to reduce mooring size and cost. This Columbia Power Technologies design was the first ocean energy device to produce kilowatt scale electrical energy off the Oregon coast and is among a handful of devices that are currently at that stage of development. Wave data was captured and will be used for additional lab testing on the LTB. In addition, numerical and experimental modeling will be used to develop a utility scale device.