Pioneering developments of marine renewable energy in Australia

Abstract

The history of ocean renewable energy developments in Australia is reviewed. A layperson's description of the physical operating principle is given for the main classes of technology that have been tested in Australian waters. The Australian marine domain possesses among the world's most energetic wave-energy resources, driven by powerful mid-latitude westerly winds. The northern coast of Western Australia has tidal ranges significant on a global scale, and some geographical features around the continent have local tidal resonances. The East Australian Current, one of the world's major western boundary currents, runs along the eastern Australian seaboard, offering potential for ocean-current energy. Seawater temperatures in the tropical northeast of Australia may permit ocean thermal energy conversion. While this abundance of resources makes Australia an ideal location for technology development, the population is highly concentrated in a few large cities, and transmission infrastructure has developed over a century to supply cities from traditional power plants. Several wave-power developments have resulted in demonstration of deployments in Australian waters, three of which have been grid connected. Trials of tidal devices have also occurred, while other classes of ocean renewable energy have not yet been trialled. The prospects for marine renewable energy in Australia are discussed including non-traditional applications such as coastal protection and energy export.

Integration of wave energy and other marine renewable energy sources with the needs of coastal societies

“…Considering that the ocean swell, which carries with it most ocean-wave power, has frequencies in the order of a tenth of a Hertz, a simple back-of-the-envelope estimate using (1) shows that devices need to be in the order of 10 m in size to achieve resonance. The situation is somewhat more complicated with the float-on-spring represented by (2), but the same conclusion occurs: the device must be very large, as detailed in Manasseh et al (2017). Considering the ocean swell wavelengths may be 50-200 m, matching the wavelength similarly requires a very large device.…”

“…Many devices that are mostly described by equation 3also have a second frequency (a second 'mode') described by equation 4, and vice versa. More details are in a companion article (Manasseh et al, 2017). The device is geometrically 'tuned' such that ω 0 matches the typical frequency of ocean waves, ω.…”

“…Section 'Resource assessment techniques for the major MRE classes' outlines the resources available in the major forms of MRE, wave and tidal energy; the less-widespread forms of marine renewables are described in the following section along with the technologies. Section 'Classification of technologies' introduces the technologies in detail, focussing on techniques for classifying the technologies in the context of decision-making by coastal communities; engineering details of the technologies are detailed in a companion article (Manasseh et al, 2017). Section 'Experience from MRE developments in coastal communities' describes some experiences of coastal communities hosting MRE technologies.…”

Operating Principle, Performance and Applications of the Wave Mill

“…A full scale prototype was built and deployed in Moreton Bay, off Brisbane, Queensland, Australia in 2016 [8]. Table 1 indicates the dimensions of the prototype and Table 2 indicates the wave conditions present at time of testing.…”

Investigating the Interaction of a Partially Submerged Barrier with Water Waves Using Open-Source Computational Fluid Dynamics

“…Şekil 1. Salınan su sütunu tipi dalga enerjisi dönüştürücü [3] Salınan su sütunu veriminin dalga frekansına göre değişimi analitik [1,2] ve deneysel [4,5] çalışmalarla incelenmiştir. Bu çalışmalarda salınan su sütunu hidrodinamik verimi η'nin, birimsiz dalga sayısı Kh'a göre değişimi Şekil 2'deki gibi verilmiştir.…”