Ocean waves and wind

On Friday I attended a symposium on water, wind and wave energy at the Ångström Lab. I have to admit I rarely set foot outside the Ångström Solar Center where we research CIGS thin film solar cells - although I did put in an appearance a few weeks ago at a barbecue hosted by the Grätzel aka dye sensitized solar cell group.

There are actually many interesting things happening in the Ångström building. A couple of floors up from me is a guy, Josh Thomas who is building a better battery. Incidentally, Daniele got to interview him as part of a physics course and came away with the opinion that scientists like to explain things in detail well beyond the interest of an ordinary listener (I believe that this advice was also directed at us in the solar cell group). Then there are the space researchers making microthings that went up with the Rosetta space probe, the nuclear and particle physics researchers, the astronomers and their observatory at the south end of the building (I'm at the north end), Scandinavian Biogas of which I know nothing and the electrochromics group and their spin-off company Chromogenics making things like visors to motorcycle helmets whose transparency can be electrically controlled.

The two groups of interest at the symposium both involved energy - which is why I attended - and there are two spin off companies involved. One is is called Seabased http://www.seabased.com/engelsk where they manufacture linear turbines that they've developed such that ocean wave energy can be collected. The turbines had to be developed for the low frequency motion of waves - there are about 15 waves per minute. The company is now building a pilot installation in the sea near Gothenburg to provide energy to 20 homes on the island of Lysekil. They have generated quite a bit of interest which translates into financing from the electric company giants. Essentially they install an array of buoys in the sea that are connected by a rope to generators which will collect and transmit energy to land. Waves move the buoys around causing the generators to produce electricity. Seabased also likes to point out that their wave energy farms can double as fish havens to protect fish from those evil fishing boats. Of interest to me as a solar scientist is that they directly indicate how superior wave energy is to solar or wind: they claim wave energy can be utilized 4 to 5 thousand hours per year as opposed to 2 for wind and only 1 for solar in Sweden. While it's nothing new that solar is a summer thing in Sweden, what was surprising for me was the need for non-solar alternative energy technologies to compete with solar. I had naively assumed we were all partners in seeking global energy solutions.

The other company is called Vertical Wind http://www.el.angstrom.uu.se/frameset.html?/forskningsprojekt/vind_E.html. They have a home built test wind turbine situated near Uppsala with 5 meter long blades. This is a vertical axis turbine and thus doesn't require pointing into the wind - most wind turbines in the news are horizontal. The generator is at the base of the tower and the turbined is designed to operate at lower frequencies than the traditional horizontal axis wind turbines. Not surprisingly, the turbines were developed by the same group responsible for the Seabased turbines.

There is actually another company under development along the same lines of thought as the first two: Current Power. They have what look like miniature versions of the wind turbine that are placed not in wind but under water to collect energy from water currents. I found a site that illustrates all three companies http://www.energypotential.se/portfoljbolag.html. Even though it's in Swedish, it's got a few diagrams of interest.

The discussion of water power I didn't follow much. I think it was included because the major investors are the electric companies Vattenfall and Fortum. They like to tout hydro since it generates much of Sweden's electricity.