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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Stephen McDonald, Professor Volker Pickert, Professor Nick BakerORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Power Take-Off (PTO) for Wave Energy Converters (WECs) is a challenge for developers. Typically a mechanical PTO involves hydraulics, compressed air or gears to convert the high force, low velocity energy flux from the WEC into a high velocity, low force form suitable for electrical generation. A conventional generator is used, simplifying the Electrical Power Conversion System (EPCS). Further, the mechanical PTO solution permits the storage of energy to reduce the naturally peaky nature of the WEC power flow or tune the resonant frequency of the WEC. The E-Drive project aims to develop a direct-drive PTO to convert mechanical energy from the WEC directly into electrical energy suitable for export. The EPCS needs to be designed for the time varying nature of the WEC power flow and to control the WEC. For example, to provide WEC reactive power control. The EPCS is modular to improve reliability and adopts a Current Source Converter (CSC) as the generator interface with localised energy storage and a multilevel inverter as the grid interface. This paper discusses the suitability of the CSC and explores reactive power control for a case study WEC. Results from the WEC model with the generator and CSC are presented.
Author(s): McDonald SP, Pickert V, Baker N
Publication type: Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Publication status: Published
Conference Name: EWTEC 2017
Year of Conference: 2017
Online publication date: 27/08/2017
Acceptance date: 01/08/2017
Date deposited: 20/09/2017
URL: http://www.ewtec.org/proceedings/
