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Control of Wave Energy Converters

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Ocean Wave Energy Systems

Part of the book series: Ocean Engineering & Oceanography ((OEO,volume 14))

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Abstract

Energy from the ocean is one of the least exploited renewable and sustainable energy sources, and possesses an enormous amount of untapped energy. The harnessing of energy from the ocean can be accomplished by several methods such as salinity and temperature gradient, waves, currents, and tidal variations. Amidst all, the ocean waves are a highly promising form of energy. Ocean waves have a tremendous amount of energy that can be harvested to meet the increasing energy demand. There are several challenges in wave energy conversion, which include the corrosive environment, the constraints of the converters, untuned device performance for the incoming waves, and irregularities in waves and air velocity. These challenges affect the overall system performance and decrease the overall conversion efficiency. The solution for many of these problems is to tune the device according to the wave climate and a controlled operation of the system. As waves differ in height and period, an optimal control method can help improve the efficiency, performance, and power absorption of a wave energy converter (WEC). This chapter presents a review of various control schemes applied to wave energy devices to achieve higher efficiency. The actual efficiency of WEC in real-time is very less compared to theoretical efficiency which is obtained around 70–80%. This large efficiency gap is due to various stages involved in the wave energy conversion process. To achieve good overall efficiency an optimal design and control techniques need to be applied at different stages of WEC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wave Energy and Fluids Engineering Laboratory (WEFEL), Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 600036, India

    R. Suchithra & Abdus Samad

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  1. R. Suchithra
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  2. Abdus Samad
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Correspondence to Abdus Samad .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    Abdus Samad

  2. Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    S.A Sannasiraj

  3. Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    V Sundar

  4. Institute of Ocean Energy, Saga University, Saga, Japan

    Paresh Halder

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Suchithra, R., Samad, A. (2022). Control of Wave Energy Converters. In: Samad, A., Sannasiraj, S., Sundar, V., Halder, P. (eds) Ocean Wave Energy Systems. Ocean Engineering & Oceanography, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78716-5_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78716-5_16

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-78716-5

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