Harvesting the power of wave motion as a renewable energy source has been a goal for many marine researchers.
Concerns about it's reliability and impact on marine life have presented challenges in testing. New funding from the U.S. Department of Energy totaling $5 million could help fix these problems.
The funding will help researchers at the University of Michigan develop devices used to create electricity from wave motion that are quieter, sturdier, and easier to test at near-ocean-ready sizes.
Marine energy is not as widely used as solar panels and wind turbines, partially because the of the rough waters that snap expensive mooring lines and leave energy devices lost at sea.
Lei Zuo is a Professor of Engineering at the University of Michigan and each project’s principal investigator.
He said one of the projects is equipping mooring lines with shock absorbers. It would help the lines last longer while generating electricity for sensors that monitor the line's condition.
Another issue researchers are facing right now is scaling. Zou said they're working with smaller scale prototypes tested in wave takes, because full-scale testing in the ocean is expensive and risky.
This means data could be skewed due to the less realistic conditions.
New funding will allow larger scale testing and more accurate data collection. Zuo says they will also create a standardized data set for the research community to benchmark their prototypes against.
Zou says it could take a decade or more to develop marine energy at the levels of solar and wind generated power.
