CrazyDave There always comes a point in a development series...

CrazyDave

There always comes a point in a development series where management has to say, ‘this is the model we will market, this is our commercial unit’. Much deliberation has to go into such a decision. Failsafe systems have to be devised to ensure that the generated power is in fact reliable. Any significant failure at this point could produce such bad publicity that it could wipe out the company. CWE has worked very hard towards putting failsafe systems in place on its C5s. (It has not publicised most of this information.) Commercial also means likely to generate a profit and units smaller than the C6 were unlikely to do that.

The location selected for a wave farm has to have a suitable wave climate. A mere 20% capacity factor would render the project useless. The actual acceptable figure would also depend on the cost of the plant, ultimately in M$ per MW. Many people, including readers here, seem to think that wherever you see waves while standing on a beach you can have a wave farm. To a good approximation you can dismiss all equatorial regions on the planet for commercial wave power generation purposes. You need a consistent swell of significant amplitude, not mere surface waves. For this you need persistent winds and sufficient depth to build up amplitude. Once such locations are established the swells are very predictable to several days in advance which is much better than the fickle nature of winds. This kind of predictability and lead time allows for good integration with other forms of energy generation.


Wave plants are very expensive. They require inbuilt protection against the 1000 year storm while harvesting only an average power output. This explains why there are no commercial wave plants in the world thus far. But necessity is the mother of invention. CWE is one of the companies that has been gingerly stepping forward, solved many problems, and has successfully produced a working array of C5s which is a major achievement.

Part of commercialisation is the ability to say to customers, this is the energy it can produce under these conditions, and in untoward conditions you will be protected by such and such. In case of major component failure a C6 unit can be removed and towed to harbour in less than 6 hours. (Not in 2 to 3 months.) CWE has been in process of determining such routine procedures. It has been its own worst enemy in time past when it used the weather as an excuse for delaying certain progress. The Reunion Is one example when for years CWE blamed the weather for non-deployment of the C4 and shareholders were gullible enough to accept that.

If you have heard me saying these things before please excuse the repetition. The laws of nature are still the same. We are impatient. CWE has the task of producing a C6 that is cheap, lasts for decades, and makes us all rich.

Juke