OWC Wave Power Plants Capture Chamber Modelling

Abstract

The European Union is promoting the use of renewable energies as a path to fight global warming. Among them are diverse ocean energies and in particular, Oscillating Water Column (OWC)-based wave energy stands as one of the most promising technologies. An OWC device is basically composed by a capture chamber with a turbo-generator module attached to it. Although the study of the induction power module can be considered a well-known matter, the control-oriented modelling of the capture chamber composes still an open issue. In this work, an analytical model of the OWC chamber is developed and numerically implemented. The proposed model is then successfully tested and validated by means of experimental results for the particular case of Mutriku OWC wave power plant, affording excellent results.