Page 47: of Marine Technology Magazine (April 2016)

SEWEC (Redwood City, Calif.)

SEWEC is an oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy converter – a device that operates in a similar fashion to the most successful shore based wave energy convertors, such as the Limpet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islay_LIMPET). The difference is that SEWEC is free-? oating and specially adapted to withstand the more challenging offshore, deep water environment where available energy levels are higher and more widespread than those available nearshore. The SEWEC device extends the proven OWC concept, enabling devices to be moored offshore in a much wider range of locations than conventional shore-based devices. Unlike shore-based

OWC’s, only minimal site work is required to set up a SEWEC wave energy farm – the devices are simply towed out to their moorings.

The Wave Energy Prize targets offshore wave energy capture and uses conversion ef? ciency and capital cost as key metrics to compare the competing entries. SEWEC scores well on both counts – its simplicity and robustness result in low capital costs and the highly ef? cient OWC principle delivers great conversion ef? ciency.

Only large-scale deployment of low-cost, robust and ef? cient devices can fully ex- ploit the huge and as yet largely untapped renewable energy resource surging in the world’s oceans. So Team SEWEC is eagerly participating in the WEP competition – a great way to identify the really serious contenders.

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