Partner Search

Summary

A Spanish renewable-energy R&D company is offering public or private bodies a wave-power system based on the oscillating wave column system without any element directly subject to the action of the sea except for the inlets for catching the wave energy. The developer already has an agreement with a public institution to test a prototype. The company is looking for a partner with sufficient economic capacity to back the development and is offering rights over the ownership of the patent.

Full description

Waves are a kind of concentrated wind energy, with the advantage to be more continuous and predictable. Although the energy density is very high, its conversion is poorly developed and there are only few on-going projects, most of them located at sea (offshore). These systems are vulnerable to storms, their mechanism are subjected to stress, in particular mooring chains and electric cables, and can obstacle navigation and fisheries.

The proposed system is under development and in the testing phase in order to assess its feasibility. The system lacks the aforementioned drawbacks since all the active elements are located on land. Moreover, it requires a reduced development time by using well known and experienced technologies.
Reduced costs, long system lifetime and low maintenance make it an attractive solution for the commercial exploitation.

The company has extensive experience, with over ten years of experience in the design and development of components and machines related to renewable energy. It has a multidisciplinary team working in international project development, with both private and public financing from R & D European framework.

Innovative Aspects

Although the system proposed is based on the well-known oscillating water column technology (OWC), it offers significant differences:
" The use of a single turbine directly connected to the grid, sharing an independent number of sea water inputs.
" The system does not produce noise since it does not exchange air outside of the structure.
" The turbine delivers constant power to the grid, regardless of the characteristics of the incident waves.
" Maintenance is always done on land.
" Unlike off-shore systems it creates no threat for sailing and fishing
" It does not produce any visual or environmental impact since it can be integrated into the environment and morphology of the coast.
No similar technology has been found described neither in the testing nor the commercial phase.

Partner expertise sought:

- Type of partner sought and type of activity:
Public or Private Institution and Companies financially solvent.
They offer property rights of patents, and commercial exploitation of the resulting product.
It is not essential to have infrastructure of Industrial Engineering.

- Task to be performed by the partner sought:
Financing; collaboration on development and, manufacturing if needed.