OES Annual Report 2012 - Ocean Energy Systems

81
04 / COUNTRY REPORTS
The real scale prototype system of 100 kW with 5 knots of water current speed has been built and has been
deployed nearby Venice in a very slow speed current of about 3 knots, downscaling the power to 20 kW.
This prototype has been built by a consortium of Venetian companies thanks also to a financial contribution
of Veneto Regional Authority.
The real field test has demonstrated the fully correspondence of the system behaviour with respect to what
had already been measured on the 1:5 model during the test campaign in naval towing tank.
GEM: Artist impression
and real scale prototype
FRI – EL SEA POWER System
Sea Power is a new groundbreaking project which consists of a vessel or pontoon, moored to the seabed, to
which several lines of horizontal axis hydro turbines are attached. The same pipes, connecting the turbines
through cardanic joints providing the necessary flexibility to the system, transfer the power captured from
the water on board of the pontoon. Pipes are here connected to electrical permanent magnet generators
(PMG) that are kept out of the water in order to simplify and diminish their maintenance. The electric
generators transform the power carried by the transmission lines into electrical energy, which can be directly
fed into the grid through an undersea cable, connecting the individual floating structures to a submarine
hub, which in turn is connected to the shore by a single submarine cable. Alternatively, the systems can be
installed offshore far away from the coasts and hydrogen can be produced with the electricity generated
by the turbines.
After several numerical simulations, a first validation of the studies has been made by testing a prototype
of the system in the water towing tank of the Naval Engineering Department of the University of Naples
“Federico II”. Soon after the controlled tests, a series of open water prototypes tests has been carried out
in the Strait of Messina, in order to check if the system works well in real conditions.
In July 2008, a small-scale of the Sea Power prototype (6 kW - 2.5m/s) was launched and in 2009 later
another bigger prototype (20 kW - 2.5m/s) was tested in the same waters.
The final system will be designed to be installed in rivers.
THE KOBOLD TURBINE
The Kobold Turbine is conducted in collaboration with “Ponte di Archimede international Spa”, a company
that works in the field of research and development into alternative and renewable energy sources,
specialising in the environmental aspects of this work.
The Kobold consists of a submerged vertical-axis turbine for exploitation of marine currents installed in the
Strait of Messina, 150 metres off the coast of Ganzirri, since 2002. The realization of the Enermar prototype
has been financed by Ponte di Archimede Company, together with a 50% fund paid by the Sicilian Region