$4.4 Million for Diver Who Invented WaveRoller Inspired by Underwater Door Encounter

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$4.4 Million for Diver Who Invented WaveRoller Inspired by Underwater Door Encounter

by Susan Kraemer in Blue Energy, Technology

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It was a Eureka moment for Rauno Koivusaari, and he started to work on harnessing the powerful motion for generating underwater wave power. Now, fifteen years later, the EU is funding the WaveRoller invented by that former diver, with $4.4 million. His company AW-Energy will do a demo of his device in “the wave capital” Peniche area off the Portugese coast.

Image by AW-Energy The_Wave_Roller

WaveRoller

The Finnish diver Rauno Koivusaari had been exploring a shipwreck in the Baltic in 1993 when he nearly got hit by a shipwrecked door on the seabed that was slowly flapping back and forth in the roiling currents deep under the sea.

The invention that was inspired by the near hit under the sea was the WaveRoller. The company that the diver founded to create it is now leading a consortium of organizations working on aspects of the first test of wave energy funded by the EU; Bosch-Rexroth, ABB, Eneolica, and Wave Energy Centre.

For the yearlong test a 300 KW WaveRoller unit will be bolted to the seafloor and the energy data recorded. Funding comes from the European Union as part of its program to assist the R&D for developing new renewable energy sources. This is their first wave energy research funding.

The WaveRoller captures the powerful undulating motion (video) at the sea floor whereÂ back and forth surge movement has been recorded by AW-Energy. The device would be positioned 7-15 meters under the surface, so it’s well beneath the bottom of passing ships. It is also well out of sight of NIMBY opposition.

It has had increasingly elaborate tests to tweak the engineering since 1999, and it is now ready for its first year-long test at full scale (3.5 by 4.5 by 6 meters) for one unit. This is a modular energy system; more units can be connected together in groups of three to scale it up to make more power.

Just one 300 KW WaveRoller unit weighs 20 tons. Divers take care.

Source: RenewableEnergyWorld

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Posted on Oct 22, 2009

Tags:

AW-Energy, wave energy test, WaveRoller

About the Author

Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer is a transplanted Kiwi retired from three design businesses she started from humble beginnings in N.Y.C. and California, who now lives in the Bay Area. She enjoys living in a gorgeous but big passive-solar house her husband designed and built 15 years ago overlooking the San Francisco Bay up in the East Bay Hills, but now they are thinking of something different with their kids gone from the nest. She writes about climate change to publicize the many great solutions we can find if we just put our minds to it.

6 Responses to “$4.4 Million for Diver Who Invented WaveRoller Inspired by Underwater Door Encounter”

Mark

Oct 23, 2009

That is a great example of a Eureka Moment! Also, love the green energy concept presented. Hope it works! I have a lot of Eureka Moments in water as well. Mine almost always occur in the shower, in bed, in a meeting, or in my car. I keep a pad of paper wherever I am to write them down. I even found a waterproof notepad for the shower at http://www.myaquanotes.com (ha!).
Uncle B

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Nov 23, 2009

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