Langlee announces a new design for the mooring of arrays of their WEC devices that follows their declared “simple design – easy maintenance” strategy. They indicate it to be based on technology and design currently used in fish farming.
Have not seen any further detail yet, but I think this could be an interesting development.
Also of interest the fact that the announcement was made at the Latin America Marine energy conference in Santiago (Chile). Sounds like the conference was well attended by some of the bigger players in the wave energy conversion sector. Reasonable to expect some important developments occurring in Chile and some other Latin American countries in the very near future
Extracts from Langlee Wave Power news release:
Norwegian renewable energy firm Langlee Wave Power has developed a new mooring system based on proven fish farm technology to drive down supply chain costs.
The mooring system is set to deliver efficiency savings for Langlee’s 50 kW E1 Wave Energy Converter and allow easy installation of a linked array of multiple units which can provide several megawatts of power.
[…] Fish farming has a 30 year track record with similar components that we can adapt for wave energy, but one fifth of the costs compared to the oil and gas sector. The mooring system can be easily installed, leaving an array to be filled with the required number of E1 units which are connected by four mooring lines.
[… further benefits include easier/cheaper maintenance procedures as …] we can simply de-ballast the hull, bringing the whole system to the surface where it can be maintained on a barge without disconnecting the cable or mooring lines. This delivers further cost savings to other wave technologies by eliminating the need to tow to shore or use divers or remotely operated vehicles.”
Reference: Langlee Wave Power
