Wave power in Ireland

tevion

I am doing my level 7 college dissertation on 'Wave Energy Generation – Is it the solution to Irelands energy needs?'
I must provide a comprehensive review of the current state of wave-power in Ireland.
I have to look at the feasibility of using wave energy in Ireland to provide for our energy requirements.
Associated issues with the technologies involved.
Electricity transmission network for wave energy.
Although it seems that wave power technologies seem to be still in testing at the moment, I must examine the above issues.
Any advice or pointers would be greatly apprecated on where to get some appropriate material for this project.

Thegingerbear

Engineers Ireland have given some interesting talks in the last twelve months on wind and wave energy and they would be well worth viewing. If you are a member all you have to do is log on and download them.

justtry

you should talk to the guys in Galway on the WaveBob project.

skinnie

You should be able to find some helpful information on the SEAI website:

Information on Ireland's Wave Energy Resources - including maps of the available wave energy around Ireland

justtry wrote: »

you should talk to the guys in Galway on the WaveBob project.

The WaveBob team are actually located in Maynooth as far as I know, but they do have a prototype out for testing in the Galway bay test site,

Wavebob.com

another few links to other devices being developed

OceanEnergy OEbuoy also testing in Galway Bay

Pelamis

and there are loads of others

ibh

Openhydro is another company working in this area. They are Canadian i think but have a site in Louth and i think offices in Dublin as well.

mayo_lad

you might want to look at the reserch being done in ul (the site is a bit old tho) http://www.ul.ie/wert/

CrabieCrawford

There's a tidal turbine installed in Strangford Lough which I did my dissertation on. SeaGen are the company who built it, I remember emailing them for some info and they were quite helpful when I said it was for a dissertation and sent me out a good bit of info that I wouldnt heve got my hands on otherwise.

Maybe try them or just email any other company you know associated with Wave energy.

Sugarfree

Open Hydro and Seagen are Tidal turbines, a different industry to wave energy itself. Wave energy is the guts of a decade away from commercial reality while the Tidal Turbines are a lot closer. There are three types of wave energy device. Point Aborbers such as wave bob, Overtopping devices such as the EU research project called the wave dragon and Oscillating wave columns such as aquamarines device called the "Oyster" I'm doing a level 9 thesis on wave energy as well but i have an advantage as I have worked in Power gen for a few years before I came back to do my masters.

Its an incredibly exciting area which is the reason I came back to do a masters to specialise in it, If you want to pm me your e-mail address I'd be more then happy to send you on material. If i was you I'd go on youtube and type in the more common devices to give yourself a better understanding.

The main challenges facing wave power are the cost to produce energy, Availability remember the most wind farms operate off an availability of above 97% and there a lot more accessible then wave farms would be. Survivability is another one storms could inflict severe damage. Ireland's first attempt of building offshore energy has been a disaster in my opinion.

Timmaay

I'm bumping a 6month old thread here I know, but anyway, why do you think wave energy is the guts of 10years away from commercial reality? There seems to be quite a few companies working on this at the minute, will it really take that long for there to be any sort of wave farms as such?

Offy

Timmaay wrote: »

I'm bumping a 6month old thread here I know, but anyway, why do you think wave energy is the guts of 10years away from commercial reality? There seems to be quite a few companies working on this at the minute, will it really take that long for there to be any sort of wave farms as such?

I dont think its much of a runner. Wars are still being started for oil which says to me that the US, UK, Germany, France, etc. want oil. If other sources of energy were available without the cost of war then I suspect these countries would be pumping money into them instead of pumping money into invading countries in the middle east that have oil reserves.