SEA-TITAN Project - Surging Energy Absorption Through Increasing Thrust And efficiency

 

Spring 2020


Surging Energy Absorption Through Increasing Thrust And efficiency

Europe's 2050 Energy Strategy Roadmap has established a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% - 95% compared to 1990 levels and renewable energy accounting for at least 64% and up to 97% of the electricity consumed. A motivated and well-experienced team from industry and public institutions has taken on the challenge to develop a second-generation linear generator power take-off solution for Wave Energy Converters available for free for everyone based on novel open hardware business model.

The SEA-TITAN project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 764014 (call H2020-LCE-2017- RES-RIA-TwoStage). A total of 11 European entities are involved in the development of SEA-TITAN for a total duration of 36 months.

Innovation
The SEA-TITAN project aims to make a step change in the wave energy sector by designing, building, testing and validating an innovative second generation Direct Drive Linear Electric Generator Power Take-Off solution: An Azimuthal Multitranslator Linear Switched Reluctance Machine (AMSRM). This development is based on a new configuration and geometry of a first generation Multitranslator Linear Switched Reluctance Machine (Figure 1) developed by some of the proponents some years ago. The development aims at achieving high continuous and peak force densities and also high efficiencies with application to multiple wave energy conversion technologies through collaboration with different wave energy developers and industrial partners with strong track record on technology.


Figure 1: 1st generation multitranslator linear switched reluctance machine

Open hardware business model
Technology developers have felt compelled to create patents out of concern that the big energy companies would copy their technology and then use their massive manufacturing, sales and marketing power to overwhelm these technology developers. They couldn't have been more wrong. The unfortunate reality is the opposite: wave energy programs at the major utilities or independent power producers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 0.1% of their total R&D resources. By opening the innovation process to the open source community, SEATITAN can benefit on the technology side through comments, ideas, and further developments. Open source and crosscutting are the characteristics that will define the SEA-TITAN business model.

State of progress and opportunities
SEA-TITAN project is in its 24th month of development (March 2020), great success has been achieved already: designs are finalized, and prototype fabrication started together with SIEMENS-GAMESA.

Furthermore, the always expanding external industrial exploitation board (EIEB) already comprises multiple experts from the areas of the electricity generation utilities, potential final users of the technology, manufacturers and ocean energy stakeholders. Don't hesitate to contact us if you are interested in joining SEA-TITAN project and get access to the most advanced Power Take-Off technology for wave energy.


Further information:
Website: www.seatitan.eu