I think that the small enterprises will be able to sell WECs in the near future (may be not very near), but probably in a few years once this area of extracting wave energy has indeed a high dynamics in its development.
In order to be able to sell their devices, the companies (either small or great) should convince their clients that their WECs will be really effective and their deployment in a certain place will be profitable. In my opinion there are three important issues that might help in defining a WEC as effective: survival capacity, maintenance cost and power matrix. As regards the last aspect, I have shown in some of my works that this represents an essential issue that should be carefully analyzed before installing a wave farm in a certain location
They should start with locations having less variable wave climate, such as the equator.
In the future the human civilization only will relay on the renewable source of energy in that situation their option will be wind ,solar, hydrogen ,wave ,geothermal ,they will start using these source in full option so in the future the usage and preference for wave energy will improve gradually
now t the awareness for implementing such technology in Asia is very poor
by making awareness we can achieve an clean and cheap energy available to every one
Off course small company must start commercialize wave energy devices.
I hate to be a contrarian, but I don't think that small companies will have much luck with wave energy. The ocean is unforgiving and corrosive. Whether you use the surface motions or subsurface pressure, you deal with all of the ocean issues and then the transition to the shore with the power itself. To make power at any scale, you have a large deployment challenge. By the nature of the coast, you will probably minimize the number of grid connections and that means competing with the economics of large-scale energy generation rather than distributed. All of these take lots of capital and patience - traits that make success as a small company more difficult.
Have a look at
http://www.wavepowerconundrums.com/2013/02/nutshell-technology-readiness-performance-matrix.html
for some good input on research technology development strategy by Jochem Weber.
small companies can concentrate on instrumentation, spares for maintenance and construction and deployment of 5 to 100 kWh wave energy devices. However a good mix of mechanical, ocean, structural, electrical and instrumentation engineers are required with relevant experience
Focus on the niche applications, and leave the large-scale projects for the big guys. Get some experience, and patents.
A very interesting paper on this topic is one by Andrew Garrad, titled "The lessons learned from the development of the wind energy industry that might be applied to marine industry renewables" Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A. 2012 370 451-471.
Theoretically there is a large amount of power in ocean waves. In some areas, the theoretical potential is up to 90 kW per metre of wave front. However, there are big challenges in harnessing this big energy reserve. First the location is not governed by only the strength of the wave flux but also due considerations must be given to the conflicting uses of the sea areas. Then the challenge to design a high efficiency device to extract the power. Next, to balance the need for strong waves which bring high energy and the design and construction of a strong enough supporting structures which can withstand those same large wave forces.Lots of funds need to be invested in the preliminary works, development of prototyes and field trials of pre-commercial prototypes. For small companies, these challenges are too much to bear.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physical Sciences
- Energy
- Energy-Generating Resources
- Renewable Energy