Estimation of the energy producibility of an offshore wave energy converter

Abstract

Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to Europe and the world. Each year that passes the atmosphere warms up and the climate changes with possible catastrophic consequences for all living species. It is therefore necessary to implement a decisive change of course in terms of energy and environmental strategies at a global level, gradually abandoning the use of fossil sources in favor of renewable ones. A lot of country participates to European or global energy treaties or pacts to reduce step by step their fossil energy consumption and greenhouse gas. Among all renewable energies, the engineering department of the University of Palermo focuses the exploitation of sea energy. The study reported in this abstract involved the optimization of a WEC (wave energy converter) in term of geometry. The device focused is a point absorber with a PTO (power take off) composed by a linear generator. The software used to model the WEC is "Ansys Aqwa".