PRESENT-DAY PATENT- A PREVIEW

Electricity generation from renewable sources are seeking special attention these days to meet the energy demand of the exponentially-rising population, rapid urbanization and industrialization.  Marine renewable energy from the oceanic waves, tides or currents is still a developing technology of electricity generation, mainly employed in countries with extensive coastlines. In fact, the marine energy capacity all over the world was just 508.1MW in 2023, as per the International Renewable Energy Agency reports. Usually, the marine energy is yielded by employing Wave Energy Converters (WEC), offshore wind turbines and tidal energy converters. The WECs are highly popular among these technologies, as it involves the conversion of high energy in the moving waves into usable electricity at all times, irrespective of the time of occurrence of tides or the changing weather conditions. Point absorbers, overtopping devices, attenuators and Oscillating Water Columns (OWCs) are a few WEC types, of which point absorbers are more prevalent in usage because of its easy and scalable on-shore or off-shore installation. The main components of the point absorber-type WEC are the buoy that floats over the sea and the Power Take-Off (PTO) hydraulic cylinder encompassed with a motor or a turbine.  The chief mechanism involves the conversion of the up and the down motion of the buoy, floating in relation to the wave motion, into mechanical-cum electrical energy in the PTO setup. However, the conventional point absorber-type WEC can neither control the floating position of the buoy nor have its PTO without contacting the sea. A recent invention addresses these issues as follows: (i) The buoy can be maintained vertically on the sea using an arm, frame and actuator setup, irrespective of the changing mean sea-levels; (ii) The PTOs are linked to the float via an arm and thus it is not located at the sea-level, preventing corrosion. Since, marine-based electricity generation can impart highly-dense and continuous power than the other renewable energy resources, similar cost-effective means that completely utilize the wave power to generate electricity is anticipated in future. 

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