No. 13: Race to develop a new system for wave activated power generation (November 4, 2011)

Three companies involved in the development of a wave activated power generation system are intensifying their efforts to introduce a new system. They plan to finish the basic design in two years and start a substantiative experiment on the sea in 2013 with a view to achieving a generation unit cost of 40 yen per kW by 2015. Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding will improved the system developed by Ocean Power Technologies of the U.S. to make it suitable to the sea around Japan. The new model will be 8.5 m wide and 30 m long with a capacity of 80 kW.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Bridge andSteel Structures Engineering will develop a system that uses waves coming to breakwaters to run a turbine with the help of changes of water surface and pressure in alliance with Toa Corporation. The equipment for the system is 20 m wide, and it projects about 20 m from the breakwater. Hitachi Zosen and a joint venture company in Kobe will develop a gyro system that generates the power when rotating circulate plates comes back to the original position by virtue of waves. They plan to build two units of generation equipment, each of which has a capacity of 100 kW. Japan started the development of a wave activated power generation system since 1975, but is still unsuccessful in translating it into practical applications because of the high generation unit cost. Each of the three groups addresses the development as a project led by New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and plans to realize a generation unit cost of 20 yen per kW by 2020.