Techport Innovation Tribe: wave energy
Techport hosted an Innovation Tribe on Sept. 19, 2023, in which professionals from the business community joined with students and teachers from ROC Nova College to develop an idea from professor Johan Paulides (AE Magentic). Paulides wants to generate wave energy from the sea by having second-chance robotic arms generate reverse power. At the table were specialists from business from Van Bodegraven Electric Motors, Beuker Special Products, Hoogewerf Engineering, Stemar, IJssel Technology, Pentacon, EKB and Harsveld. Present from Nova College were teachers from the Mytec program and nine students.
It soon became clear that the idea was for a giant "submersible" structure of a triangular floating frame 200 meters long per side. At this scale, it should be possible to provide an average of 2.5MW of wave energy for 7,000+ hours per year. That's enough for about 5,000 households.
The tribe looked at solutions for lighter construction, how to get the pods out of the water in bad weather and whether the pods could be "stored" within the three floats.
In short, a complex challenge that still requires many partial solutions. See below the vlog about this inspiring session.