News

A swell chance to harness wave energy

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:06:38 +1000

by: JAMES MADDEN From: The Australian April 18, 2012 12:00AM

ALI Baghaei looks at the surf differently from most Australians. For the 55-year-old industrialist whose Sydney-based company is at the forefront of wave energy technology, a generous 2m swell prompts thoughts of business ahead of pleasure.

Having spent $80 million over the past 15 years on research and development to harness wave energy into electricity, Mr Baghaei's Oceanlinx is on the cusp of launching its core patented technology, the Oscillating Water Column, on the global market.

But to make the final step to commercialisation the company is going to apply for funding through the federal government's $10 billion clean energy loan scheme.

Ali Baghaei, chief executive of wave energy company Oceanlinx, at Manly Beach in Sydney yesterday. Picture: Sam Mooy Source: The Australian

"The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is a huge step in the right direction for those involved in renewable technologies, as well as associated manufacturing and engineering industries," Mr Baghaei said.

"If this country is serious about supporting research and development, and seeing it through to commercialisation, then we need to assist companies who are seeking to be pioneers of industry."

Mr Baghaei said that in recent years Australia had let valuable intellectual property regarding renewable technologies slip through its fingers.

"The timing of financial support for renewable technology projects is critical. It's not an industry where you can sit on your hands and wait patiently for a green light," Mr Baghaei said.

"Australia was too slow off the mark when it came to financially supporting wind farms, and that intellectual property went overseas. Hopefully, we have now learned our lesson."

Mr Baghaei said of the $80m spent by Oceanlinx on its Oscillating Water Column technology, about 80 per cent of the funds had come from foreign investment.

"That just shows how much potential that small companies like ours can have on the global market, and it also shows how valuable renewable technologies are thought to be," he said.

Three years ago, the Labor government gave Oceanlinx a $2.9m federal grant, which enabled the company to develop a test platform for its wave energy technology at Port Kembla, south of Sydney.

Further support in the form of a loan through the CEFC would assist the company's aim to have its technology available to the market ahead of schedule.

"We are almost at the pinnacle of our achievement. We just need that final push to help us reach that final target," Mr Baghaei said.

Oceanlinx discusses its technology with Australian Prime Minister

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:00:00 +1000

In a recent forum initiated by the the Hon. Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Oceanlinx’s CEO, Ali Baghaei, and founder, Dr Tom Denniss had the opportunity to meet with the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard and other Ministers. Those who spoke with Ali Baghaei were intensely interested to hear about the significant technological progress made by Oceanlinx in recent times, culminating in the dramatic reduction in its cost of electricity production that has the technology now cost-competitive with most other mature renewable energies. This is the first time Oceanlinx has put this information in the public domain.

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, is seen the below photograph discussing the potential of the technology with Ali Baghaei.

Oceanlinx Breakthrough to Commercialization

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:00:00 +1000

Oceanlinx has developed and refined its technology over the past fourteen years to such a point that it is now commercially competitive with other forms of renewable energy, such as on-shore wind. Over the past eighteen months, major technological breakthroughs have led to a significant enhancement of the Oceanlinx greenWAVE and airWAVE products. This has resulted in a step change in the production cost of power from the technology.

Oceanlinx has, to date, installed a total capacity of 750 kW via three separate projects in the real ocean, including being the first and only Australian company to sell electricity to the local grid through a power purchase agreement, and one of only three companies world wide to do so. These projects have resulted in over 40,000 hours of operational experience, 5,000 hours of electrical production, and 8,000 hours of scale testing.

greenWAVE is a direct evolution of the MK1 unit, installed and operated since 2005. A rigorous development and testing program during 2008/09 resulted in a five-fold increase in efficiency of the core oscillating water column (OWC) technology.

The airWAVE turbine is a combination of Oceanlinx’s original Denniss-Auld and more recent partial admission turbines. A 30% increase in turbine efficiency was achieved through a combination of testing regimes, including sea trials.

Evolution of these two products now means Oceanlinx can produce electricity at costs comparable to the most mature forms of renewable energy in good wave climates.

Oceanlinx and AMC Awarded Australian Research Council Grant

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 09:00:00 +1000

The Australian Research Council (ARC), through its Industry Linkage Project Program, has awarded a team of researchers at Oceanlinx Limited and the Australian Maritime College (AMC) a grant of $342,000 over a three year period to undertake research into the performance and design optimisation of the Oceanlinx Oscillating Water Column (OWC) ocean wave energy converter. The researchers at AMC, which is part of the University of Tasmania in Launceston, include Professor Neil Bose, Gregor Macfarlane, Dr Laurie Goldsworthy and Dr Irene Penesis, who will work closely with Oceanlinx.

AMC and Oceanlinx have established an active collaboration over the past eight years, during which time numerous physical model experiments have been conducted within the AMC Model Test Basin and Towing Tank. The aim of this new project is to optimize the next generation of Oceanlinx’s near-shore OWC ocean wave energy conversion system, for the production of utility-scale electricity and desalinated water. Physical experiments will be used to visualise and quantify the particle flow in and around the systems to identify and minimise energy losses. The results will ensure Oceanlinx, recipient of multiple international renewable energy awards, will continue to lead the world in the development of this most effective and economically attractive wave energy conversion system.

Oceanlinx Leads Global Wave Energy Sector

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 09:00:00 +1000

The latest review of the global wave energy industry, by independent US-based company Emerging Energy Research, has again confirmed Oceanlinx as a leader in the sector. Emerging Energy Research, a respected authority in the analysis of new energy technologies, has concluded that Oceanlinx is the most advanced OWC (oscillating water column) technology in the world. The latest analysis is further confirmation of the progress being made by Oceanlinx in the field of wave energy, with the company’s greenWAVE product now a commercial reality.

A summary of the findings of Emerging Energy Research is shown below.

Detailed testing confirms the commercial viability of greenWAVE

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:00:00 +1000

Recent detailed testing of the latest Oceanlinx technology development has confirmed the exciting potential of the company’s greenWAVE unit. The testing indicated the technology, which has won acclaim from authorities such as the International Academy of Science and the United Nations, is already cost competitive with other more mature forms of renewable energy.

Oceanlinx is very pleased with the outcome of this validation process and is excited at the prospects for the technology as the world moves to a more sustainable energy future. Given its current position on the early stages of the “learning curve”, the company believes the technology will be cost competitive with most conventionally generated fossil fuel based electricity within five years.

The overall greenWAVE unit, which includes an Oceanlinx airWAVE turbine, is designed for a 25 year life expectancy in environments like that of southern Australia. Each greenWAVE unit is rated at 1 MW and is capable of producing electricity at prices that are competitive with wind energy.

Oceanlinx Unveils Its New airWAVE Turbine

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 09:30:00 +1100

Oceanlinx has unveiled the latest version of its proprietary turbine – the airWAVE turbine. The airWAVE turbine is a design evolution, improving upon the original Denniss-Auld turbine. The airWAVE turbine has fewer moving parts and a conversion efficiency that is higher than both the Denniss-Auld and other comparable turbines. Like the Denniss-Auld, the airWAVE turbine is located well above the ocean, with no moving parts in the water. The airWAVE turbine further improves the overall wave-to-wire efficiency of the Oceanlinx greenWAVE and blueWAVE products.

Oceanlinx Unveils greenWAVE and blueWAVE

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 09:00:00 +1100

Oceanlinx has now finalized the full-scale development of both its shallow and deep water oscillating water column (OWC) designs. These latest versions of the Oceanlinx technology have been named greenWAVE and blueWAVE respectively. The greenWAVE unit is a single OWC chamber, fixed to the seabed in shallow water. In a good wave climate greenWAVE is rated at around 1 MW. The blueWAVE unit is a cluster of six OWC chambers, moored as a floating device in deeper water. In a good wave climate blueWAVE is rated at around 2.5 MW. Both the greenWAVE and blueWAVE devices utilize the same Oceanlinx airWAVE turbine, generator, and control systems. The greenWAVE and blueWAVE units are fully commercial versions of the Oceanlinx technology – the culmination of 13 years of technology development. Versions of both are expected to be rolled out in commercial operation over the next two years.

Oceanlinx Features in COP16 Publication

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 09:00:00 +1100

Oceanlinx has featured in Climate Action, the official publication of the COP16 Climate Change Meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Special mention was made of the numerous international accolades the company has received. The article also highlighted the wave energy project that Oceanlinx will be developing in Baja California, in collaboration with Mexico’s Comision Federal de Electricidad. The article appeared alongside the publication’s Foreword by Achim Steiner, the UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

It can be viewed at http://www.climateactionprogramme.org/publication/book_2010/ on page 11.

DNV Verify blueWAVE Power Output

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 09:00:00 +1100

Certification authority Det Norske Veritas (DNV) has independently verified the power output of Oceanlinx’s blueWAVE OWC, according to the protocol OSS-312 Certification of Tidal and Wave Energy Converters. Based on the results from the one-third scale MK3PC deployed in early 2010 at Port Kembla, DNV concluded that, for a full-scale device that was tuned to the appropriate wave height and period, the Oceanlinx methodology for calculating the resulting power is accurate. This is a powerful third party validation of Oceanlinx’s rigorous quality control and of the blueWAVE capability to produce an electrical output of 2.5 MW.

Oceanlinx Develops proWAVE

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 09:00:00 +1100

Oceanlinx has developed a highly accurate new wave-to-wire model named proWAVE. This software package takes any wave climate as input and calculates the corresponding annual electrical output of an Oceanlinx wave energy converter. proWAVE solves a system of differential equations for water elevation inside the OWC, air pressure in the air chamber, and (for the floating version) the OWC’s structural elevation itself, in real time. Estimates are provided for instantaneous, average, or annual electric power production. The tool has already proved extremely useful to Oceanlinx for optimizing control strategies for its turbine and generator systems.

DNV Verify Oceanlinx Load Calculations

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:31:18 +1100

Certification authority Det Norske Veritas (DNV) has independently verified that the calculation of predicted structural loads and forces on the blueWAVE wave energy converter is correct, thereby validating the efficacy of the blueWAVE design. DNV assessed the methodology employed by Oceanlinx according to the DNV Offshore Standards protocol, with special emphasis on OS-C101 Design of Offshore Steel Structures and OS-C103 Column Stabilized Units (LRFD). This important validation of the blueWAVE design provides a high level of confidence in the blueWAVE structure and its ability to withstand prolonged marine deployment, ensuring its survival in any and all sea and weather conditions the system may encounter during its 25 year operating life.

Oceanlinx Awarded Most Outstanding Clean Energy Technology Innovation for MK3PC

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1000

Oceanlinx CEO was invited to speak at the recent EcoGen 2010 Conference, held on September 5 - 8. The industry conference and exhibition brought sustainable solutions to the Australian energy market helping to make a sustainable energy future a reality in a land with abundant natural resources.

EcoGen 2010 featured key speakers from Australia and abroad, including a well received presentation from our own CTO, Dr Tom Denniss.

This prestigious event featured high profile industry leaders such as:

Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, Federal Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water
Greg Hunt, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage
Christine Milne, Greens Deputy Leader Senator
Professor Robert Hill, Chair of the Australian Carbon Trust
Andrew Livingston, Renewable Energy Regulator, Office of the Renewable Energy Regulator
Rob Morrison, Former Chairman of brokerage and investment group, CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets

Oceanlinx was very pleased to accept the top award for one of the four categories on offer - the Most Outstanding Clean Energy Technology Innovation for its MK3PC which was deployed and grid connected at Port Kembla. The award was presented at the EcoGen Gala Dinner on September 7, attended by more than 500 people.

The EcoGen Clean Energy Awards, Australia’s premier clean energy awards, recognise excellence, innovation and outstanding achievement in Australia’s clean energy industry. The awards were judged on the candidates’ overall contributions, including through their actions, initiative, and leadership in the industry and the broader Australian community.

This award further demonstrates the support and confidence that the renewable energy community has in Oceanlinx.

MK3PC Performs Better Than Expected

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:00:00 +1000

Results from the one-third scale model of the Oceanlinx floating wave energy technology, dubbed the MK3PC, have exceeded expectations in regard to performance. The unit was deployed for three months, from February to May, 2010, and operated successfully during that time as one of the world’s first grid-connected generators of electricity from ocean waves.

Independent electrical generation data supplied by the power off-taker, Integral Energy, has validated the 2.5 MW rated design of the full scale device. The unit was operated with both the Oceanlinx proprietary turbine and a third party turbine, and produced consistent grid-quality electricity that was supplied to local Integral customers in the Illawarra region.

Overall, the performance and grid connection of the MK3PC device was a major success.

Oceanlinx attending the All Energy Conference in Aberdeen, Scotland

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:00:00 +1000

Oceanlinx will attend the All Energy Conference held on 19 and 20 May in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Our UK team will showcase the Oceanlinx technology, in particular our latest significant achievement; an ocean deployed grid connected device named the Mark 3 Pre Commercial (MK3PC) which is located in Port Kembla, Australia. At stand D48 you can have your questions answered by the UK team: Nathan Faulks, Fraser Johnson and Peter Bromley, view video footage, photographs and models demonstrating the Oceanlinx technology and the MK3PC deployment and take away our electronic business card.

Nathan Faulks will present at the session entitled “Meanwhile on the other side of the world” running between 11.00-12.30 on Thursday 20 May.

We look forward to meeting you there.

www.all-energy.co.uk

Bringing cheap power to our shores

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +1100

It seemed a day that was better suited to formally launch a new wind farm than the country’s first grid-connected wave energy plant: a stiff breeze blew across the factories and smelters that make Port Kembla one of the most energy and emissions-intensive regions in the country, but the ocean itself was calm – not big enough even to pack the long-board.

But marine energy doesn’t need big swells or breakers to generate electrons. It does, however, need a commercially viable technology. As guests and dignitaries gathered under a marquee to celebrate the launch of the third iteration of Oceanlinx’s wave technology – the MK3PC – the question of the barge-like structure was this: Yes, it looks great, but will it work?

The live data monitoring the energy being sold to the local utility suggested it could. Notably, as the wind died, the ocean kept moving, as it does. Wave energy may or not be 'baseload' but the advantage it has over wind is that it is predictable. Oceanlinx chief executive, Ali Baghaei, says his installations should work at around 75-85 per cent of capacity, a percentage pleasing to utilities. It could be pleasing to bankers too, once the wave energy developers get their installation costs down.

Coastal wave power could, in theory, provide twice the world’s energy requirements. In reality, it will provide a good deal less than that, but will still be an important component of the global energy mix, particularly in wave rich regions such as England and Ireland, Spain and Portugal, and the coasts of Africa and much of the Americas. And, of course, Australia.

Right now, the problem is how best to harness that energy. The sector is unique in that there is no technology standard. The prototypes on offer range from machines that resemble giant sea-snakes to oysters, and upturned Apollo space capsules, to those – like Australia’s Carnegie and BioPower Systems – that seek to mimic the action of the sea by having forests of underwater buoys driven by the ocean’s movements.

Oceanlinx’ technology uses a series of oscillating chambers in a large structure that allows w ater to enter, compress the air and drive a turbine, and do the same as air is sucked back in as the water recedes. The 170-tonne demonstration model is 8m high, 12m wide and 30m long – the commercial model will be three times the size. A facility with numerous modules could create a 50MW power plant.

Baghaei, a former nuclear plant boss who was brought in to turn the ideas of a 'bunch of enthusiasts' into a viable commercial venture, expects his technology to be competitive with offshore wind by the middle of next year, and with onshore wind within three years. “This is a significant day,” he said. “It is actually doing what it is supposed to be doing.”

Oceanlinx is backed by Australian clean energy venture capital investor Cleantech Ventures, along with Espirito Santo, the largest private bank in Portugal, and the Swiss-based Emerald Technology Ventures.

The involvement of the European investors is crucial because the big leaps in wave energy will likely occur overseas, even if Australian technologies rank among the most advanced in the world. Earlier this month, the UK’s Crown Estate announced the successful tenders for a $6 billion program to trial 10 different wave technologies. The UK believes one quarter of its energy could be supplied from marine sources. Elsewhere in Europe, countries are offering significant feed-in-tariffs and other measures, such as multiple renewable energy certificates, to attract developers to their coastlines. Spain and Portugal are in the forefront, as are some US states on the western seaboard and countries like Chile.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett said wave energy was an 'under-recognised' part of the renewable energy mix, both here and abroad, and seemed to admit, at least tacitly, that that could continue to remain the case in Australia, as he talked of the significant opportunities for development overseas.

But it is not the lack of R&D or wave energy resources that holds Australia’s wave energy producers back, or pushes them to find expansion projects overseas: quite the contrary, it’s the lack of government incentive, a legacy of the thrall that most politicians still have for the fossil fuel industry, and the lack of influential lobbying support for renewables – apart from wind – from Australia’s established industries.

There’s no reason why Australia could not do the same as the UK or the Iberian nations. But as we’ve seen in solar, and more recently in the allocation of the one commercial scale wave energy farm that the government has promised to back, this government much prefers to export the ideas, import the finished product back from what is now a foreign-owned entity and pay an Australian company to screw the thing together.

by Giles Parkinson
Source: Business Spectator. 30 March 2010
http://www.businessspectator.com.au
Bringing cheap power to our shores

Australian First – MK3PC Grid Connected

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +1100

Today Oceanlinx is launching its 3rd Generation Wave Energy Converter, the Mk3PC. This latest design and pre-commercial platform, is one of the most efficient and cost-effective wave energy technologies in the global scene today. We are very proud to announce that this unit is the only wave energy device in Australia of this size to be connected to the electrical grid and producing energy. In fact, we are one of very few wave energy developers around the world that have grid connected wave energy devices. To download full media release, click here.

Oceanlinx named one of the Top Ten Renewable Energy Investment Opportunities in the World

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:00:00 +1100

Oceanlinx was recently named by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) as one of the Top Ten Renewable Energy Investment Opportunities in the World. The company was selected by an international panel of experts at the UNIDO Blue Sky Awards ceremony, held at the organization’s Investment and Technology Promotional Center (ITPC) in Shenzhen, China. The ceremony was held on November 17.

The top ten global award winners were chosen from among the numerous international nominee companies in attendance. Oceanlinx received votes from seven of the nine expert judges, placing the company third overall on the tally of winners. The nominees were selected from across the full range of global renewable energy technologies, with Oceanlinx being the only wave energy company nominated by the international panel of renewable energy experts.

The award demonstrates the high regard in which the Oceanlinx technology is held in the global renewable energy community, and further highlights its potential as a world leading technology in the effort to reduce carbon emissions.

Victoria’s waves power up communities

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:00:00 +1100

Using one of the best wave and energy resources in the world, Australian company Oceanlinx, via its Nelson Bay Ocean Energy subsidiary, is working to harness renewable wave energy to power up to thousands of Victorians in coastal communities.

To download the complete ETIS Fact Sheet, click here.

Oceanlinx begins building third-generation ocean-swell-to-energy generator

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:00:00 +1100

The ocean is a potential treasure trove for renewable energy—one NASA study estimated more than 91 000 terawatt-hours annually of accessible energy worldwide. But wave-power technology development has been plagued by the unpredictability of the source and technical troubles stemming from the harsh ocean water environment. Now an Australia-based company has found a new way, to predictably and reliably generate energy from the ocean. The technology relies on the power of ocean swells, which are easy-to-predict long-wavelength oscillations.

Earlier this month, off the coast of Port Kembla, near Sydney, Oceanlinx began installation of its final demonstration-scale, grid-connected unit before it begins commercial construction. (The company is disassembling its first demo plant there, which has been in operation since 2006.) The new plant will be ready in early 2010, and its power can be connected to the Australian grid. Oceanlinx CEO Ali Baghaei says the new plant ”will validate a capacity over 2.5 megawatts” per unit—enough energy for about 2000 Australian homes.

The technology behind the power involves tugboat-sized platforms that convert ocean swells to energy as they pass beneath them. Unlike other ocean-energy schemes, the platform converts the energy of the swells into air pressure to turn a wind turbine.

Oceanlinx’s technology has its roots in the oil industry. Oil platforms no longer sit on the seabed; instead, they float, kept relatively stable by enormous heave plates (which look like big duck feet) situated many meters below the surface and stabilized by mooring lines. The same technology that keeps oil platforms in place can generate energy, which Oceanlinx demonstrated in 2007 with their second-generation prototype.

Oceanlinx’s generator is essentially a big hollow box, with an open bottom and a smaller opening at the top. In calm water, the platform floats on the surface of the water, less than a third of it above the water line, the entire structure held in place by the and stabilized by mooring lines.. When a swell passes through the hollow structure, water pushes up into the empty space. That forces the air inside through a turbine at the top, generating electricity. When the wave exits the chamber, it creates a vacuum that sucks air in and spins the turbine again. So both the inflow and the outflow of the wave generate energy.

The generators, which have a modular design, can be combined and configured to provide a range of generation capacities, which will leave a smaller footprint than other renewables schemes, Baghaei says. For example, he estimates, the company’s third-generation platforms could form an array a few hundred meters across to generate hundreds of megawatts, on a par with the biggest commercial tidal power facility in the world, the 240-MW La Rance tidal power plant, in France.

”The genius of their approach is that there are no submerged moving parts,” says Karl Stahlkopf, a partner at Sennet Capital, a Honolulu-based investment bank that specializes in alternative energy projects and is funding Oceanlinx. Until recently, Stahlkopf served as senior vice president and chief technology officer at Hawaiian Electric Company; prior to that he was a vice president at the Electric Power Research Institute. He says that in his many years in the industry, he had never been sanguine about wave power—until he saw the Oceanlinx technology. ”A wave-power machine should have a minimum 20-year lifetime,” he explains. ”But the ocean is rough on these parts. Nothing has been able to stand up to the ocean very well. If something breaks, it’s spewing hydraulic fluid into the water, and because it’s underwater, it’s hard to repair.” The Oceanlinx systems have no hydraulic or other oil, and no moving parts below the waterline.

The rugged design has already been proved in the extreme environments in which the oil industry sets up its rigs. And in fact, the oil industry may be the first to benefit. Oceanlinx is working on a way to use its generators to create power and desalinate ocean water for deep-water oil rigs.

The technology’s other strength, Stahlkopf says, is its ability to generate predictable energy in a sector widely assumed to be unpredictable. The platforms take advantage of swells in the ocean, not waves. This distinction is important. A wave breaks, while a swell is the formation, over long distances, of long-wavelength surface oscillation. The real power of the ocean, he says, lies in swells.

For Hawaii in particular, the Oceanlinx technology would be an ideal fit, Stahlkopf says. The swells on which the technology relies become more powerful (and generate more energy) the longer they travel unbroken by islands and other geological features; an unbroken expanse of water without islands or barriers is called a long fetch. As it happens, about a kilometer off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Maui, swells arrive that have been traveling unbroken for 5000 kilometers, all the way from the Bering Strait. Hawaii is the most isolated and remote landmass in the world—fetches come in from the South Pole, the Aleutians, and Asia.

Because swells travel such distances, Oceanlinx’s generation is much more predictable than wind power—”wind you can predict within a time frame of four to five hours,” Baghaei says. ”Our technology lets you predictably measure generation five to seven days in advance.”

BY SALLY ADEE // OCTOBER 2009
Source: IEEE Spectrum, 20 October 2009
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/this-renewable-energy-source-is-swell/0