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A submerged transmission, fitted with a dynamic sealing system, in a wave energy converter (WEC) serves the purpose of transmitting the force, absorbed by a wave activated body, to an encapsulated power take-off (PTO) system, while preventing seawater from entering the capsule. Dry generator operation is generally a prerequisite for attaining long technical service life. Little attention seems to be devoted in publications to the study of dynamic sealing systems in WECs, and to test rigs for experimental verification and/or evaluation of the ability/performance of existing dynamic sealing systems in a controlled laboratory environment. This paper begins by presenting some of our earlier research within the focus area of dynamic sealing systems, incl. design considerations and typical operating conditions. This part also presents the 1st laboratory test rig, used for verifying the sealing ability of the piston rod mechanical lead-through design in the 1st and 2nd full-scale experimental WEC prototype from Uppsala University. In 2021 project DynSSWE (Dynamic Sealing Systems for Wave Energy) was initiated. Drawing from experience, the project includes development of a new test rig, representing a tool for further development of dynamic sealing systems. This paper introduces steps in the design and development process of that new test rig, enabling accelerated long-term test runs with a setup of multiple piston rod specimens. The test specimens’ will be surface treated differently with the aim of improving the prospects of a long maintenance free service life. Since the new test rig is in the design stage, seal testing results are not yet reported. The presented work is funded by the Swedish energy agency with the aim of improving subsystem performance in wave energy devices.

Although knowledge of seabed properties is of high importance in selecting sites and determining technical designs and solutions for renewable energy offshore installations, it is often overlooked in marine spatial planning, owing to the absence of appropriate spatial analysis of these conditions. Identification and quantification of seabed conditions and geotechnical properties in finding safe and environmentally sustainable areas for installations of offshore renewable energy are therefore presented, using information produced in marine geological mapping. Six seabed environmental and 13 geotechnical parameters, which can be extracted from existing marine geological information and are of importance in analysing environmental conditions and planning designs are identified and presented, in addition to the suitability of various installation techniques for different areas on the Swedish seabed. Geographical information systems (GIS) are used to geo spatially evaluate the different parameters in finding suitable locations and cable routes for a wave energy plant with gravity and/or suction caisson foundations. The presented categories and ranges of the environmental and geotechnical values for the various parameters have the possibility to be improved as new data are produced from future mapping. The parameters identified and presented here are valuable as they can be incorporated into multi-parameter evaluations for optimal site selection of different offshore installations.

Here, accessibility to near-shore and offshore marine sites is evaluated based on wave and ice conditions. High-resolution third-generation wave model results are used to examine the operation and maintenance conditions for renewable energy sources with a focus on wave energy. Special focus is given to the wave field and ice characteristics for areas within the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone including analysis of return levels for extreme values for significant wave height, which provides guidance for dimensioning wave energy converters. It is shown that the number of weather windows and accessibility are influenced by distance from the coast and sea-ice conditions. The longest waiting periods for the closest weather window that is available for Operation and Maintenance (O&M) is in ice-free conditions shown to be strongly correlated with the fetch conditions. The sheltered Baltic Sea is shown to have very high accessibility if marine infrastructure and vessels are designed for access limits of significant wave height up to 3 m. In the northern basins, the waiting periods increase significantly, if and when the ice-conditions are found to be critical for the O&M activity considered. The ice-conditions are examined based on compiled operational sea-ice data over a climatic time period of 34 years. The results are location specific for the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone, but the analysis methods are transferable and applicable to many other parts of the world, to facilitate assessment of the most promising areas in different regions.

In a future energy system based on renewable energy sources, wave energy will most likely play a role due to its high energy potential and low intermittency. The power production from parks of wave energy converters of point absorber type has been extensively studied. This is also the case for the wave energy resource at many coastal areas around the globe. Wave energy has not yet reached a commercial level, and a large variety of technologies exist; therefore, an established method to calculate the technical potential for wave energy has still not been established. To estimate the technical potential of wave energy conversion, some approximations inevitably need to be taken due to the systems high complexity. In this study, a detailed mapping of the wave climate and simulation of large arrays of hydrodynamically cross‐coupled wave energy converters are combined to calculate the technical potential for wave energy conversion in the Swedish exclusive economic zone. A 16‐year wave data set distributed in a 1.1 km × 1.1 km grid is used to calculate the absorbed energy from a park of 200 generic point absorbers. The areas with best potential have an average annual energy absorption of 16 GWh for the selected wave energy park adapted to 1 km2 when using a constant damping, while the theoretical upper bound is 63 GWh for the same area.

This Full Paper on Innovative Practise introduces a successful pedagogical approach to active student learning and student centred teaching in a large project course in electrical engineering for 70 midterm freshmen students in two educational programs at Uppsala University. Each program is challenged with the complev electrical engineering task of realizing an all-electric powertrain from component level for a passenger car. The first two rounds of the course struggled and not until the presented approach was taken into practise were the main project objectives achieved The principles for the approach are based on project-led PM. with a so-called mixed-nude approach by adding a variety of supporting content supplied through various teaching methods and by applying adapted concurrent project management methods. The paper addresses the arguments for the approach, the course design, objectives, and some of the successful solutions over the last 6 years. The approach has been evaluated by extensive written student course evaluations, student examination results, the experiences of the team of teachers from faculty, and compared over time. It is shown how the approach effectively enables achievement of the project and learning objectives, increases subject interest, provides valuable experiences from a project work environment, and in the process inspires and motivates students towards a career in engineering, thereby increasing the retention within the education. Both students and teachers have greatly appreciated the course and it is likely that the presented approach can be used also in other similar project courses in engineering.

In this study, a third-generation wave model is used to examine the wave power resource for the Baltic Sea region at an unprecedented one-kilometer-scale resolution for the years 1998 to 2013. Special focus is given to the evaluation and description of wave field characteristics for the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone (SEEZ). It is carried out to provide a more detailed assessment of the potential of waves as a renewable energy resource for the region. The wave energy potential is largely controlled by the distance from the coast and the fetch associated with the prevailing dominant wave direction. The ice cover is also shown to significantly influence the wave power resource, especially in the most northern basins of the SEEZ. For the areas in focus here, the potential annual average wave energy flux reaches 45 MWh/m/year in the two sub-basins with the highest wave energies, but local variations are up to 65 MWh/m/year. The assessment provides the basis for a further detailed identification of potential sites for wave energy converters. An outlook is given for additional aspects studied within a broad multi-disciplinary project to assess the conditions for offshore wave energy conversion within the SEEZ.

Wave energy is an attractive source of renewable energy. In regions with a cold climate, for example, in the Baltic Sea, a good understanding of ice loads is vital for developing a reliable and cost-effective buoy for a wave energy converter (WEC). The first full-scale attempt was made to measure the vertical reaction force on a floating buoy connected to the WEC under the ice level interaction process. The force equation for a buoy connected to the WEC during the ice level interaction process is presented. It provides essential information on forces from the floating level of ice, which is very important for the design and construction of a buoy in regions with a cold climate.

This study presents a step toward the grid connection of a wave-energy park through an electric power conversion system (EPCS) developed and installed for the wave-energy harvesting in Lysekil, Sweden. The EPCS comprises a rectifier, a DC bus, and an inverter followed by a harmonic filter (HF). The higher- and lower-order harmonics injected by the inverter in a power quality context are investigated. The lower-order voltage harmonics partially distort the voltage-source inverter output grid current. A phase-locked loop-based (PLL) grid-phase tracking is used to attenuate the lower-order harmonics by reflecting the grid harmonics in the inverter output. An expression for the grid-current harmonics as a function of the grid-voltage harmonics has been derived and implemented. A mathematical model is derived to obtain a transfer function for the PLL, and finally, proportional–integral gains are tuned for stable system operation. An HF for mitigating the higher-order harmonics has been implemented. The total harmonic distortion is evaluated experimentally, and the results fulfil the grid-code requirements at various frequencies and harmonic orders.

Low-frequency sea level variability can be a critical factor for several wave energy converter (WEC) systems, for instance, linear systems with a limited stroke length. Consequently, when investigating suitable areas for deployment of those WEC systems, sea level variability should be taken into account. In order to facilitate wave energy developers finding the most suitable areas for wave energy park installations, this paper describes a study that gives them additional information by exploring the annual and monthly variability of the sea level in the Baltic Sea and adjacent seawaters, with a focus on the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone. Overall, 10 years of reanalysis data from the Copernicus project have been used to conduct this investigation. The results are presented by means of maps showing the maximum range and the standard deviation of the sea level with a horizontal spatial resolution of about 1 km. A case study illustrates how the results can be used by the WEC developers to limit the energy absorption loss of their devices due to sea level variation. Depending on the WEC technology one wants to examine, the results lead to different conclusions. For the Uppsala point absorber L12 and the sea state considered in the case study, the most suitable sites where to deploy WEC parks from a sea level variation viewpoint are found in the Gotland basins and in the Bothnian Sea, where the energy loss due to sea level variations is negligible.

Output power fluctuations from a wave energy converter (WEC) utilizing the principle of an oscillating body are unavoidable due to the reciprocating movement of the translator inside the generator. Moreover, the wave energy flux largely varies with time and propagates with the wave group velocity. Making use of the oscillating output power is a challenge for many wave energy conversion concepts. Therefore, estimation of the output power from a WEC solely by the mean power does not fully reflect the process of energy conversion, especially, by a direct drive linear generator. In the present paper, the output power from the WEC with a linear generator power take-off (PTO) is considered as a stochastic process, and the WEC performance is evaluated from the statistical point of view and related to the linear generator’s (LG) stroke length. Statistics as mean, standard deviation, relative standard deviation, maximum, and mode are found for different sea states. All statistics have shown an expected overall tendency with a rising significant wave height of incoming waves. As the significant wave height increases, statistics of the power output such as mean, standard deviation, maximum, and quantile are increasing, and the mode is decreasing beside the mode for the sea state C. It has been noted that for a significant wave height equal to the LG’s stroke length, the mode is greater than the same values for sea states of other significant wave heights. The results are based on a full-scale offshore experiment and may be used for the design of energy conversion systems based on a linear generator PTO.