A Novel Hybrid Wind-Wave Energy Converter for Jacket-Frame Substructures

• Main Authors: Carlos Perez-Collazo, Deborah Greaves, Gregorio Iglesias
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2018-03-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: wave energy; hybrid wind-wave; concept development; oscillating water column (OWC); physical modelling; hydrodynamic response
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/3/637

The growth of the offshore wind industry in the last couple of decades has made this technology a key player in the maritime sector. The sustainable development of the offshore wind sector is crucial for this to consolidate within a global scenario of climate change and increasing threats to the marine environment. In this context, multipurpose platforms have been proposed as a sustainable approach to harnessing different marine resources and combining their use under the same platform. Hybrid wind-wave systems are a type of multipurpose platform where a single platform combines the exploitation of offshore wind and wave energy. In particular, this paper deals with a novel hybrid wind-wave system that integrates an oscillating water column wave energy converter with an offshore wind turbine on a jacket-frame substructure. The main objective of this paper is to characterise the hydrodynamic response of the WEC sub-system of this hybrid energy converter. A 1:50 scale model was tested under regular and irregular waves to characterise the hydrodynamic response of the WEC sub-system. The results from this analysis lead to the proof of concept of this novel hybrid system; but additionally, to characterising its behaviour and interaction with the wave field, which is a requirement for fully understanding the benefits of hybrid systems.