AW-Energy teams up with Queen’s Uni for new WaveRoller base

Finnish wave energy developer AW-Energy and Queen’s University Belfast are set to collaborate in developing a towable foundation for the WaveRoller device.

The collaboration, expected to last for 6 months, involves performing tank tests on AW-Energy’s WaveRoller wave energy device and its re-deployable foundation with the aim of developing a more cost-effective solution.

The project began on July 15 this year, with the completion date set for January 15, 2018, under support from Ocean Energy Europe’s MaRINET2 program, according to AW-Energy.

Christopher Ridgewell, CTO at AW-Energy, said: “Queen’s University Belfast has built up a lot of experience tank testing nearshore wave energy converters and plenty of research into nearshore wave energy converters has been conducted by the team at Belfast.”

Trevor Whittaker, Professor of Coastal Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast, added: “We are delighted to be using our knowledge of wave power technology acquired over the past 40 years to support AW Energy in their R&D. The collaboration will utilize our facilities which were purpose-built for the development of wave energy in the nearshore environment.”

The project is hoped to be the first step in a series of collaborations with Queen’s University to develop the WaveRoller device further, AW-Energy noted.