An Overview of the Oscillating Water Column (OWC) Technologies: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

There is a vast amount of energy available in ocean waves which can contribute to provide the electricity supply specially for countries surrounded by the ocean. This paper provides background knowledge in different techniques to harness the kinetic and potential energy in wave power along with an overview of the recent developments in Oscillating Water Columns Wave Energy Converters. The main purpose of this study is to provide a thorough review on the current state of the technology and methods in Wave Energy Converters and to help scientists to find the future potential and gaps in this area. Moreover, significant research opportunities are identified based on the literature review of the existing research studies, and research problems to be addressed are presented and can be used as tool for the future research in this area.

Floating Oscillating Water Column Wave Energy Converters: A Review of Developments

“…The present manuscript aims to investigate the existing developments in the oscillating water column technology in the open sea by presenting the evolution of the floating OWC concept and providing an overview of current knowledge. Although numerous studies have covered different techniques to capture the ocean waves focusing on OWCs [18,[23][24][25][26], dedicated research on floating OWCs in the open sea (where severe climate conditions prevail) has not been presented to the author's knowledge.…”